#Tyrion lannister quotes describing himself | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

atopvisenyashill · 4 months ago

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that bit about joffrey is FASCINATING have you ever written about this in depth? I've always loved his character but I would never be able to like. Describe why exactly he is the way he is so I really appreciate your analysis of him loving BOTH parents and incorporating only their flaws - I always just assumed that he hates his dad and is annoyed by cersei (still loves her) but then the way we sexually humiliates and abuses sansa etc is so robert-coded like of course he emulates the bevavior of his father.

Also slightly off topic but i always forget that Joffrey is like canonically so good at all the proper princely things (thinking of that scene at Sansa and Tyrion's wedding when she's so upset that a monster like Joff could be so good at dancing) and - not to go on about GOT again - but I wish we had actually gotten to see that and him being charming etc. Huge props to the show for giving Joff the perfect wardrobe (the only thing they did right) but also f them for waiting all that potential

yes, they really said joff gets to have all the swag and then the moment he died they put cersei in that fuck ass bob and no one in the lannisters was allowed to serve again smh. and thank youuu i actually had to stop myself from rambling over him before haha, but i'll go into more detail here! so this was the comment from the other post-

joffrey is a kid just ruled by his first, most base instinct. his instincts, his core emotions, tell him to love and trust both robert and cersei, and imo he twists himself into a MONSTER to try to appeal to both of them. no one else matters - not his siblings, not his uncle, not his grandfather, not the realm. he needs to be the sort of vicious person they could both be proud of, he needs to be better than them both at violence, so he absorbs all of their faults and none of their virtues.

i definitely do see very often that people feel he only loves one or the other parent and while I do understand that reading, I don't think it's quite how Joffrey operates. I think he does love them both, and holds them both in high esteem. I do agree that he's annoyed by Cersei but that doesn't mean he doesn't value her opinion (as much as Joffrey puts value on anyone else's opinion, I mean).

Joffrey and Cersei

Joffrey relies on his mother more than almost any other male character we see in the series. We see him call for Cersei basically every time he's hurt, in trouble, or wanting to whine about something. Not only that, but you have everyone from Robert to Renly to Tywin himself saying that Joffrey is doted upon and inseparable from his mother. A few choice quotes:

"Fear is better than love, Mother says." Joffrey pointed at Sansa. "She fears me."

He takes Cersei's lessons to heart, however flawed they are. Her opinion matters to him, he wants her to see him as strong.

Nine cases out of ten seemed to bore him; those he allowed his council to handle, squirming restlessly while Lord Baelish, Grand Maester Pycelle, or Queen Cersei resolved the matter. When he did choose to make a ruling, though, not even his queen mother could sway him.

It's Cersei he listens to the most. We know that if a little King, even with his mother as Regent, doesn't want to deal with her, he can simply ignore her - that's what Jaehaerys does with Alyssa, after all. But Joffrey doesn't do this; he'll fight with her, he'll insult her, and he's not shy about doing it in public but he never disregards her out of hand.

Joffrey lurched to his feet. "I'm king! Kill him! Kill him now! I command it." He chopped down with his hand, a furious, angry gesture . . . and screeched in pain when his arm brushed against one of the sharp metal fangs that surrounded him. The bright crimson samite of his sleeve turned a darker shade of red as his blood soaked through it. "Mother!" he wailed.

His instinct, every time, is to turn to her for help. He loves her. He adores her. She's the only person around who tells him he's strong and smart and will be a good king. He leans on her for guidance, for comfort, he talks to her about fucking whores. He shares everything with her because he doesn't have a single friend. She models anger and violence for him constantly, she excuses his disturbing proclivities, so he molds himself to be the person she wants him to be, the king she wants him to be. People - including Tyrion and Tywin! - are always wondering why Cersei is blind to his cruelty, but the reality is she knew he was cruel and loved him for it.

Tommen did as he was bid. His meekness troubled her. A king had to be strong. Joffrey would have argued. He was never easy to cow.

For Cersei, cruelty is strength and in her eyes, Joffrey is as strong as they come. This isn't by accident; just like his constant cries for her are reinforced by her rushing to coddle him, his cruelty is reinforced by a mother who sees it as strength. It's almost like what Coldhands says to Bran - Joffrey is a monster, yes, but in Cersei's eyes, Joffrey is her monster.

Joffrey and Robert

Joffrey had never had a close friend of his own age, that she recalled. The poor boy was always alone. I had Jaime when I was a child . . . and Melara, until she fell into the well. Joff had been fond of the Hound, to be sure, but that was not friendship. He was looking for the father he never found in Robert.

From Cersei's point of view, I think she knows very well that Joffrey is searching for love, acceptance, and himself in Robert. She doesn't like it, but she seems to accept that it's natural for Joffrey to search for some sort of father figure, and doesn't seem to begrudge him that - imo, I think because she knows Robert is always going to reject Joffrey for his cruelty.

“Why would he [care]? Robert ignored him. He would have beat him if I’d allowed it. That brute you made me marry once hit the boy so hard he knocked out two of his baby teeth, over some mischief with a cat. I told him I’d kill him in his sleep if he ever did it again, and he never did, but sometimes he would say things…”

Whenever they interact, the few times they do, there's violence. People always take this as Cersei not allowing Robert to "teach" or "properly discipline" Joffrey but, well...does the above seem like helpful discipline? Knocking out your child because he freaked you out? Punishing extreme violence with more extreme violence? And it's not just Cersei that this moment sticks with, because Stannis brings it up as well-

"Joffrey . . . I remember once, this kitchen cat . . . the cooks were wont to feed her scraps and fish heads. One told the boy that she had kittens in her belly, thinking he might want one. Joffrey opened up the poor thing with a dagger to see if it were true. When he found the kittens, he brought them to show to his father. Robert hit the boy so hard I thought he'd killed him."

Since Cersei says Robert would "say things" and we see him threatening Cersei (the "or I'll honor you again" line), I don't think it's a stretch to say that Robert threatened to beat Joffrey nearly to death several times over.

And yet...Joffrey compliments his father, especially in comparison to his other relatives.

He wrenched free of her. "Why should I? Everyone knows it's true. My father won all the battles. He killed Prince Rhaegar and took the crown, while your father was hiding under Casterly Rock." The boy gave his grandfather a defiant look. "A strong king acts boldly, he doesn't just talk."

And Cersei believes this came from Robert-

"Father, I am sorry," Cersei said, when the door was shut. "Joff has always been willful, I did warn you . . ." "There is a long league's worth of difference between willful and stupid. 'A strong king acts boldly?' Who told him that?" "Not me, I promise you," said Cersei. "Most like it was something he heard Robert say . . ."

And of course, Jaime is the one who pieces together why Joffrey sent the catspaw-

“Yes, I hoped the boy would die. So did you. Even Robert thought that would have been for the best. ‘We kill our horses when they break a leg, and our dogs when they go blind, but we are too weak to give the same mercy to crippled children’ he told me. He was blind himself at the time, from drink.” Robert? Jaime had guarded the king long enough to know that Robert Baratheon said things in his cups that he would have denied angrily the next day. “Were you alone when Robert said this?” “You don’t think he said it to Ned Stark, I hope? Of course we were alone. Us and the children.” Cersei removed her hairnet and draped it over a bedpost, then shook out her golden curls. “Perhaps Myrcella sent this man with the dagger, do you think so?” It was meant as mockery, but she’d cut right to the heart of it, Jaime saw at once. “Not Myrcella. Joffrey.” Cersei frowned. “Joffrey had no love for Robb Stark, but the younger boy was nothing to him. He was only a child himself .” “A child hungry for a pat on the head from that sot you let him believe was his father.”

When you put it all together, you have a child who is ignored by his father unless he's being threatened with a beating, who is constantly calling him a monster, who watches his father harm and humiliate his mother day in and day out, who has no other paternal figure around but this violent, angry man who he is supposed to model himself off of, and a mother who encourages his cruelty because she believes it's the only way to protect herself, to protect her son. He's not just emulating his mother's cruelty, he's emulating Robert's violence specifically when he humilates Sansa at court, when he openly talks shit about Cersei - it's what he's seen modeled for him as kingly behavior!

The Abuse And Jaime Of It All

King Joffrey's face hardened. "My mother tells me that it isn't fitting that a king should strike his wife. Ser Meryn."

He knows Robert is abusing Cersei and he takes her dislike of it seriously even as he doesn't make the connection that she means he shouldn't be striking his wife period. Whether it's because Cersei directly told him (which could make sense; she's purposefully hiding it from Jaime but perhaps she confided in Joffrey) or because he witnessed it himself, he's aware of the abuse enough that he takes his mother's comments about not personally striking Sansa to heart.

"No," [Robert] thundered in a voice that drowned out all other speech. Sansa was shocked to see the king on his feet, red of face, reeling. He had a goblet of wine in one hand, and he was drunk as a man could be. "You do not tell me what to do, woman," he screamed at Queen Cersei. "I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!" Everyone was staring. Sansa saw Ser Barristan, and the king's brother Renly, and the short man who had talked to her so oddly and touched her hair, but no one made a move to interfere. The queen's face was a mask, so bloodless that it might have been sculpted from snow. She rose from the table, gathered her skirts around her, and stormed off in silence, servants trailing behind. Jaime Lannister put a hand on the king's shoulder, but the king shoved him away hard. Lannister stumbled and fell. The king guffawed. "The great knight. I can still knock you in the dirt. Remember that, Kingslayer." He slapped his chest with the jeweled goblet, splashing wine all over his satin tunic. "Give me my hammer and not a man in the realm can stand before me!" Jaime Lannister rose and brushed himself off. "As you say, Your Grace." His voice was stiff. Lord Renly came forward, smiling. "You've spilled your wine, Robert. Let me bring you a fresh goblet." Sansa started as Joffrey laid his hand on her arm. "It grows late," the prince said. He had a queer look on his face, as if he were not seeing her at all. "Do you need an escort back to the castle?"

I think it's pretty clear that Joffrey is dissociating here which also explains his very detached way of looking at Robert's abuse of Cersei. It freaks him out enough that he uses Sansa as an excuse to leave (giving her the Hound, then running off himself) but he doesn't show it. He's not even particularly upset during this scene, not throwing a tantrum or making whiny remarks like he does when he's usually upset. He only has a "queer look" - the stress of trying to reconcile his adoration of Robert and his love of Cersei just makes him fully shut down instead of confronting it.

Joffrey gave a petulant shrug. "Your brother defeated my uncle Jaime. My mother says it was treachery and deceit. She wept when she heard. Women are all weak, even her, though she pretends she isn't. She says we need to stay in King's Landing in case my other uncles attack, but I don't care. 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."

I think people often take his comments about how women are weak to mean he doesn't view his mother as a competent advisor. But you notice a pattern here - he gets shitty with her when it's about Jaime specifically.

"A great many people are sorry for that," Tyrion replied, "and before I am done, some may be a deal sorrier . . . yet I thank you for the sentiment. Joffrey, where might I find your mother?" "She's with my council," the king answered. "Your brother Jaime keeps losing battles."

"She's with my council" he says, because he sees no reason to not let Cersei run things without him, something Robert never lets her do. But "your brother Jaime" not "my uncle Jaime" which is a shift because he doesn't stop calling Renly or Stannis his uncles even after they rebel. He knows, he suspects, and what he resents is not Cersei fucking Jaime but Jaime fucking Cersei.

My read on this is that Joffrey sees his mother as weak for allowing herself to be seduced by Jaime, and sees Jaime as a lecherous seducer who is the cause of all his problems. If only Jaime hadn't seduced his mother, maybe his parents wouldn't hate each other. His claim wouldn't be under question. His mother should have just taken the abuse and bided her time instead of putting herself in danger and having bastards.

He loves his mother. He loves his father. And that's the human heart in conflict with itself that resides in Joffrey. Does he honor his mother, the only parent he has, or does he honor Robert, the patriarch he is supposed to emulate? If he has no other example of what strength looks like, is he even capable of figuring out a different path for himself?

#joffrey baratheon #asks #valyrianscrolls #anons #cersei lannister #robert baratheon #rani attempts meta

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aboveallarescuer · 4 years ago

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Parallels between Aerys II Targaryen and Cersei Lannister (and why they are both foils to Dany)

In this post, I gathered all the parallels I could find between Cersei and Aerys II after recently rereading Cersei’s chapters and Aerys’s section in TWOIAF. While a lot of people have made good points criticizing how Cersei was written (namely, as incompetent, misogynistic and irredeemable, at least in the canon timeline where her fate is already sealed) considering her special place in the narrative (namely, as arguably the female character who most frequently and openly questions and challenges the validity of Westerosi patriarchy, as well as the only major female villain of the story and the only woman among the three Lannister siblings), it’s also true that GRRM intended her to be paralleled with Aerys II in many ways, which will be laid out here.

Recognizing how Aerys II and Cersei are alike is particularly important for emphasizing that both characters were written as foils to Daenerys, so I will also explain how Dany doesn’t share their similarities.

Both believe they are destined for greatness

Aerys II:

Aerys II did not lack for ambition. Upon his coronation, he declared that it was his wish to be the greatest king in the history of the Seven Kingdoms, a conceit certain of his friends encouraged by suggesting that one day he might be remembered as Aerys the Wise or even Aerys the Great. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

The Lord of Casterly Rock deserved rainbows. He had been a great man. I shall be greater, though. A thousand years from now, when the maesters write about this time, you shall be remembered only as Queen Cersei’s sire. (AFFC Cersei II)

That’s not the case with Dany. Her titles (the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, Mhysa, Azor Ahai, etc) were given to her by other people, she doesn’t think she’s special despite birthing dragons and receiving multiple prophecies and she’s incredibly hard on herself for every mistake she makes. She simply doesn’t have an exaggerated sense of her importance or abilities like Cersei and Aerys II do.

Both are cut by the Iron Throne

Aerys II:

Yet still the blades tormented him, the ones he could never escape, the blades of the Iron Throne. His arms and legs were always covered with scabs and half-healed cuts. (AFFC Jaime II)

Cersei:

The barbs and blades of the Iron Throne bit into her flesh as she crouched to hide her shame. Blood ran red down her legs, as steel teeth gnawed at her buttocks. When she tried to stand, her foot slipped through a gap in the twisted metal. The more she struggled the more the throne engulfed her, tearing chunks of flesh from her breasts and belly, slicing at her arms and legs until they were slick and red, glistening. (AFFC Cersei I)

While Cersei was only cut in a dream, this moment is still significant because the Iron Throne is infamous for only harming and ‘rejecting’ the bad rulers. GRRM could have written a similar dream for Dany if he wanted to make her and Cersei follow the same direction, specially in AFFC/ADWD where he noted multiple times that they’re meant to be paralleled and contrasted. Instead, while Cersei’s first chapter in AFFC begins with her dreaming of being on the Iron Throne and being cut by it, Dany’s first chapter in ADWD begins with her dreaming of a house with a red door. Also, while Cersei wishes she could sit on the Iron Throne but is unable to because only the King and the Hand can sit on it, Dany willingly gives up on the privilege to sit on an elaborate throne and chooses an ebony bench that "did not befit a queen" in Meereen. So, not only the author emphasized that Dany doesn’t want power for its own sake (but rather to help people) and that she wants to be at the level of her people, he also didn’t take the chance to portray her as a bad ruler (because she is a good one) like he did with Cersei and Aerys II.

Both feel excitement and pleasure at the sight of wildfire

Aerys II:

Frustrated, Aerys turned to the Wisdoms of the ancient Guild of Alchemists, who knew the secret of producing the volatile jade green substance known as wildfire, said to be a close cousin to dragonflame. The pyromancers became a regular fixture at his court as the king's fascination with fire grew. By 280 AC, Aerys II had taken to burning traitors, murderers, and plotters, rather than hanging or beheading them. The king seemed to take great pleasure in these fiery executions, which were presided over by Wisdom Rossart, the grand master of the Guild of Alchemists...so much so that he granted Rossart the title of Lord and gave him a seat upon the small council. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. (AFFC Jaime II)

Cersei:

Cersei thought of all the King’s Hands that she had known through the years: Owen Merryweather, Jon Connington, Qarlton Chelsted, Jon Arryn, Eddard Stark, her brother Tyrion. And her father, Lord Tywin Lannister, her father most of all. All of them are burning now, she told herself, savoring the thought. They are dead and burning, every one, with all their plots and schemes and betrayals. It is my day now. It is my castle and my kingdom. (AFFC Cersei III)

Cersei felt too alive for sleep. The wildfire was cleansing her, burning away all her rage and fear, filling her with resolve. “The flames are so pretty. I want to watch them for a while.” (AFFC Cersei III)

Jaime knew the look in his sister's eyes. He had seen it before, most recently on the night of Tommen's wedding, when she burned the Tower of the Hand. The green light of the wildfire had bathed the face of the watchers, so they looked like nothing so much as rotting corpses, a pack of gleeful ghouls, but some of the corpses were prettier than others. Even in the baleful glow, Cersei had been beautiful to look upon. She'd stood with one hand on her breast, her lips parted, her green eyes shining. She is crying, Jaime had realized, but whether it was from grief or ecstasy he could not have said.

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. (AFFC Jaime II)

That never happens with Dany. She does describe the flames positively during the ritual to hatch the dragon eggs, but so does Jon Snow and GRRM himself. She does claim the fire as hers, but it has to do with her magical intuition as she puts two and two to birth her children and is ultimately validated. Most importantly, unlike Aerys II and Cersei, Dany a) never feels excitement while watching things burn for their own sake, b) never takes pleasure viewing or imagining her enemies burning and c) is never compared to Aerys II to highlight any disturbing behavior from her part. She is called the Mad King’s daughter by her enemies (the slavers and Mace Tyrell), but the characters around her and the ones who have nothing to gain by defaming her (Barristan, Tyrion, Illyrio, Quentyn) reiterate that she’s nothing like him. Meanwhile, two of the people who have known Cersei the longest (Jaime on the quotes above, Tyrion) compare her to Aerys II.

Both grow paranoid with time; they imagine implausible scenarios in which their perceived enemies are working (often together) against them, accept their baseless fears as truth and make hasty decisions based on them

Aerys II:

The march of the king's madness seemed to abate for a time in 274 AC, when Queen Rhaella gave birth to a son. So profound was His Grace's joy that it seemed to restore him to his old self once again...but Prince Jaehaerys died later that same year, plunging Aerys into despair. In his black rage, he decided the babe's wet nurse was to blame and had the woman beheaded. Not long after, in a change of heart, Aerys announced that Jaehaerys had been poisoned by his own mistress, the pretty young daughter of one of his household knights. The king had the girl and all her kin tortured to death. During the course of their torment, it is recorded, all confessed to the murder, though the details of their confessions were greatly at odds. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

The birth of Prince Viserys only seemed to make Aerys II more fearful and obsessive, however. Though the new young princeling seemed healthy enough, the king was terrified lest he suffer the same fate as his brothers. Kingsguard knights were commanded to stand over him night and day to see that no one touched the boy without the king's leave. Even the queen herself was forbidden to be alone with the infant. When her milk dried up, Aerys insisted on having his own food taster suckle at the teats of the prince's wet nurse, to ascertain that the woman had not smeared poison on her nipples. As gifts for the young prince arrived from all the lords of the Seven Kingdoms, the king had them piled in the yard and burned, for fear that some of them might have been ensorcelled or cursed. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Captivity at Duskendale had shattered whatever sanity had remained to Aerys II Targaryen. From that day forth, the king's madness reigned unchecked, growing worse with every passing year. The Darklyns had dared lay hands upon his person, shoving him roughly, stripping him of his royal raiment, even daring to strike him. After his release, King Aerys would no longer allow himself to be touched, even by his own servants. Uncut and unwashed, his hair grew ever longer and more tangled, whilst his fingernails lengthened and thickened into grotesque yellow talons. He forbade any blade in his presence save for the swords carried by the knights of his Kingsguard, sworn to protect him. His judgments became ever harsher and crueler. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Once safely returned to King's Landing, His Grace refused to leave the Red Keep for any cause and remained a virtual prisoner in his own castle for the next four years, during which time he grew ever more wary of those around him, Tywin Lannister in particular. His suspicions extended even to his own son and heir. Prince Rhaegar, he was convinced, had conspired with Tywin Lannister to have him slain at Duskendale. They had planned to storm the town walls so that Lord Darklyn would put him to death, opening the way for Rhaegar to mount the Iron Throne and marry Lord Tywin's daughter. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

And when the triumphant Prince of Dragonstone named Lyanna Stark, daughter of the Lord of Winterfell, the queen of love and beauty, placing a garland of blue roses in her lap with the tip of his lance, the lickspittle lords gathered around the king declared that further proof of his perfidy. Why would the prince have thus given insult to his own wife, the Princess Elia Martell of Dorne (who was present), unless it was to help him gain the Iron Throne? The crowning of the Stark girl, who was by all reports a wild and boyish young thing with none of the Princess Elia's delicate beauty, could only have been meant to win the allegiance of Winterfell to Prince Rhaegar's cause, Symond Staunton suggested to the king. (TWOIAF The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring)

When the news reached the Red Keep, it was said that Aerys cursed the Dornish, certain that Lewyn had betrayed Rhaegar. He sent his pregnant queen, Rhaella, and his younger son and new heir, Viserys, away to Dragonstone, but Princess Elia was forced to remain in King's Landing with Rhaegar's children as a hostage against Dorne. (TWOIAF The Fall of the Dragons: The End)

Cersei:

“I am counseling you. If you will not yield the regency to me, name me your castellan for Casterly Rock and make either Mathis Rowan or Randyll Tarly the Hand of the King.”

Tyrell bannermen, both of them. The suggestion left her speechless. Is he bought? she wondered. Has he taken Tyrell gold to betray House Lannister? (AFFC Cersei II)

“Lord Manderly hacked the head and hands off the onion knight, we have that from the Freys, and half a dozen other northern lords have rallied to Lord Bolton. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Where else can Stannis turn, but to the ironmen and the wildlings, the enemies of the north? But if he thinks that I am going to walk into his trap, he is a bigger fool than you.” (AFFC Cersei VII)

“No doubt. Tell me, was it our little queen who commanded you to kill Lord Gyles?”

“K-kill?” Grand Maester Pycelle’s eyes grew as big as boiled eggs. “Your Grace cannot believe ... it was his cough, by all the gods, I ... Her Grace would not ... she bore Lord Gyles no ill will, why would Queen Margaery want him ...”

“... dead? Why, to plant another rose on Tommen’s council. Are you blind or bought? Rosby stood in her way, so she put him in his grave. With your connivance.” (AFFC Cersei IX)

She knew Joff was too strong for her, Cersei thought, remembering the gold coin Qyburn had found. For House Tyrell to hope to rule, he had to be removed. It came back to her that Margaery and her hideous grandmother had once plotted to marry Sansa Stark to the little queen’s crippled brother Willas. Lord Tywin had forestalled that by stealing a march on them and wedding Sansa to Tyrion, but the link had been there. They are all in it together, she realized with a start. The Tyrells bribed the gaolers to free Tyrion, and whisked him down the roseroad to join his vile bride. By now the both of them are safe in Highgarden, hidden away behind a wall of roses. (AFFC Cersei VI)

Cersei’s case is complicated in that she has valid reasons to be anxious: prophecies come true in her world, the Tyrells did kill Joffrey (she’s right in that regard, at least) and the coin found in the cell could be evidence that the Tyrells were involved in Tyrion’s escape. The problem is how she deals with her suspicions. To defeat Margaery, she projected her experiences on her (every widow definitely has sexual appetites, so Margaery definitely has lovers), held on to the few dubious signs that she was cheating on the king (Margaery asking Pycelle for moon tea or having a lively court), tortured an innocent man to confirm the story she needs to incriminate Margaery and arrested several innocent people. Besides that, Cersei also: alienates Kevan by avoiding his recommendations and giving important titles to other cousins based on her hunch that he was bought by the Tyrells (quote above); avoids giving the Tyrells help when the ironmen attack the Shield Islands based on her baseless suspicion that Stannis made an alliance with the ironmen and was, therefore, behind the attack on the Shield Islands with the intention to turn Cersei’s eyes away from the Storm’s End and Dragonstone (quote above); forces Pycelle to "confirm" what she wants to believe because of her guess that he helped the Tyrells kill Gyles Rosby (quote above). And these are just some of the major examples.

Dany has moments when she is unsure of whether the people around her are reliable or not. She questions if Reznak is trustworthy or if he, Hizdahr and the Green Grace joined forces against her or if Groleo could be one of the three prophesied treasons, but she remains willing to listen to their advice and never undermines or punishes them solely based on her suspicions because, unlike her father or Cersei, she has a healthy distrust of others.

Both choose to be excessively and needlessly brutal against their enemies and the people who offend them (even when their offenses are relatively minor and/or not supported by facts)

Aerys II:

When one such reported that the captain of the Hand's personal guard, a knight named Ser Ilyn Payne, had been heard boasting it was Lord Tywin who truly ruled the Seven Kingdoms, His Grace sent the Kingsguard to arrest the man and had his tongue ripped out with red-hot pincers. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

By 280 AC, Aerys II had taken to burning traitors, murderers, and plotters, rather than hanging or beheading them. The king seemed to take great pleasure in these fiery executions, which were presided over by Wisdom Rossart, the grand master of the Guild of Alchemists...so much so that he granted Rossart the title of Lord and gave him a seat upon the small council. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

When Darklyn and his family were presented to him in chains, Aerys demanded their deaths—and not only Darklyn's immediate kin but his uncles and aunts and even distant kinsmen in Duskendale. Even his goodkin, the Hollards, were attainted and destroyed. Only Ser Symon's young nephew, Dontos Hollard, was spared—and only then because Ser Barristan begged that mercy as a boon, and the king he had saved could not refuse him. As to Lady Serala, hers was a crueler death. Aerys had the Lace Serpent's tongue and her womanly parts torn out before she was burned alive (yet her enemies say that she should have suffered more and worse for the ruin she brought down upon the town). (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

"M'lord, begging your pardon, Her Grace said those as didn't meet their numbers would have their hands crushed," the anxious smith persisted. "Smashed on their own anvils, she said."

Sweet Cersei, always striving to make the smallfolk love us. (ACOK Tyrion III)

"Y'Grace," he said quietly, "the boys caught a groom and two maidservants trying to sneak out a postern with three of the king's horses."

"The night's first traitors," the queen said, "but not the last, I fear. Have Ser Ilyn see to them, and put their heads on pikes outside the stables as a warning." (ACOK Sansa VI)

“I hope you did not wake them, Ser Boros. Let them sleep.”

“Sleep?” He looked up, jowly and confused. “Aye, Your Grace. How long shall—”

“Forever. See that they sleep forever, ser. I will not suffer guards to sleep on watch.” (AFFC Cersei I)

“His Grace should send the Wall a hundred men. To take the black, ostensibly, but in truth …”

“... to remove Jon Snow from the command,” Cersei finished, delighted. I knew I was right to want him on my council. “That is just what we shall do.” She laughed. If this bastard boy is truly his father's son, he will not suspect a thing. Perhaps he will even thank me, before the blade slides between his ribs. “It will need to be done carefully, to be sure. Leave the rest to me, my lords.” This was how an enemy should be dealt with: with a dagger, not a declaration. (AFFC Cersei IV)

“Send some of your whisperers to these shows and make note of who attends. If any of them should be men of note, I would know their names.”

“What will be done with them, if I may be so bold?”

“Any men of substance shall be fined. Half their worth should be sufficient to teach them a sharp lesson and refill our coffers, without quite ruining them. Those too poor to pay can lose an eye, for watching treason. For the puppeteers, the axe.”

“There are four. Perhaps Your Grace might allow me two of them for mine own purposes. A woman would be especially ...”

“I gave you Senelle,” the queen said sharply.

“Alas. The poor girl is quite ... exhausted.”

[...] “Yes, you may take a woman. Two, if it please you. But first I will have names. (AFFC Cersei V)

“I cannot have Falyse spreading tales about the city. Her grief has made her witless. Do you still need women for your ... work?”

“I do, Your Grace. The puppeteers are quite used up.”

“Take her and do with her as you will, then. But once she goes down into the black cells ... need I say more?” (AFFC Cersei VII)

Dany doesn’t act like this. She burned the masters in Astapor to protect her retinue and punished the Meereenese leaders who ordered the crucifixion of the slave children, but she also spared all the Yunkish masters and most of the Meereenese masters. Her leniency is the root of her problems in ADWD, since it allowed them to retaliate against the abolition of slavery. Additionally, Dany doesn’t punish Ghael for spitting on her, she doesn’t punish a boy for trying to attack her, she doesn't punish Xaro for threatening her to her face, she chooses not to follow her councillors' advice to punish the former slavers indiscriminately and so on. You can read more about how Dany's tendency is to avoid using violence in this meta.

Both use torture to get people to confirm what they believe or what's convenient for them

Aerys II:

Cersei:

“Tell us how you pleasured the little queen. [...] How many of them did you have carnal knowledge of?”

“None of them. I’m just a singer. Please.”

[...] Lord Qyburn ran a hand up the Blue Bard’s chest. “Does she take your nipples in her mouth during your love play?” He took one between his thumb and forefinger, and twisted. “Some men enjoy that. Their nipples are as sensitive as a woman’s.” The razor flashed, the singer shrieked. On his chest a wet red eye wept blood. [...]

By dawn the singer’s high blue boots were full of blood, and he had told them how Margaery would fondle herself as she watched her cousins pleasuring him with their mouths. At other times he would sing for her whilst she sated her lusts with other lovers. “Who were they?” the queen demanded, and the wretched Wat named Ser Tallad the Tall, Lambert Turnberry, Jalabhar Xho, the Redwyne twins, Osney Kettleblack, Hugh Clifton, and the Knight of Flowers.

That displeased her. She dare not besmirch the name of the hero of Dragonstone. [...] The Redwynes could not be a part of it either. [...] “All you are doing is spitting up the names of men you saw about her chambers. We want the truth! [...] Horas and Hobber had no part of this, did they?”

“No,” he admitted. “Not them.”

“As for Ser Loras, I am certain Margaery took pains to hide what she was doing from her brother.”

“She did. I remember now. Once I had to hide under the bed when Ser Loras came to see her. He must never know, she said.”

“I prefer this song to the other.” (AFFC Cersei IX)

Dany doesn't act like her father or Cersei in that regard either. She allows the use of torture (which is normalized in her world) to question people regarding the murders of former slaves, but she stops it once she realizes that the results are unreliable because, unlike her foils, she cares about punishing the actual perpetrators, not about having her beliefs confirmed at any cost.

Both are often cruel, rude and disrespectful to others

Aerys II:

At the great Anniversary Tourney of 272 AC, held to commemorate Aerys's tenth year upon the Iron Throne, Joanna Lannister brought her six-year-old twins Jaime and Cersei from Casterly Rock to present before the court. The king (very much in his cups) asked her if giving suck to them had "ruined your breasts, which were so high and proud." (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Over his Hand's strenuous objections, the king doubled the port fees at King's Landing and Oldtown, and tripled them for Lannisport and the realm's other ports and harbors. When a delegation of small lords and rich merchants came before the Iron Throne to complain, however, Aerys blamed the Hand for the exactions, saying, "Lord Tywin shits gold, but of late he has been constipated and had to find some other way to fill our coffers." (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Tyrion, as the babe was named, was a malformed, dwarfish babe born with stunted legs, an oversized head, and mismatched, demonic eyes (some reports also suggested he had a tail, which was lopped off at his lord father's command). Lord Tywin's Doom, the smallfolk called this ill-made creature, and Lord Tywin's Bane. Upon hearing of his birth, King Aerys infamously said, "The gods cannot abide such arrogance. They have plucked a fair flower from his hand and given him a monster in her place, to teach him some humility at last." (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

Cersei stared at her, aghast. “Your lackwit sister gets herself raped by half of King’s Landing, and Tanda thinks to honor the bastard with my lord father’s name? I think not.” (AFFC Cersei II)

She wanted a storm to match her rage. To Jocelyn she said, “Tighter. Cinch it tighter, you simpering little fool.”

It was the wedding that enraged her, though the slow-witted Swyft girl made a safer target. (AFFC Cersei III)

“Would Your Grace honor her white knight with a dance?”

She gave him a withering look. “And have you fumbling at me with that stump? No. I will let you fill my wine cup for me, though. If you think you can manage it without spilling.” (AFFC Cersei III)

“Very well. Get off those saggy knees and try to remember what it was to be a man.” Pycelle struggled to rise, but took so long about it that she had to tell Osmund Kettleblack to give him another yank. (AFFC Cersei IX)

For the vast majority of the time, Dany is kind and courteous. Her detractors tend to question that fact with two main arguments: a) she laughed at Quentyn; b) she is intolerant about Meereenese culture. Their first argument is very weak. Dany didn't laugh at Quentyn, she laughed about the reason why Quentyn is called frog and then forgot to explain why she did so in the Common Tongue. Even then, though, Quentyn is so overwhelmed by her kindness that he only remembers that "the queen had always spoken to him gently". Their second argument is also unconvincing because Dany's dislike of several aspects of Meereenese culture has to do with their ties to slavery (case in point: the fighting pits) and, even then, she makes several concessions to culturally adapt. Additionally, unlike Aerys II or Cersei, she doesn't express her critical thoughts (which are way less common and way less derogatory than Cersei's) verbally.

Both give rewards and promotions to those who blindly obey and agree with them, regardless of whether they’re experienced, competent or trustworthy

Aerys II:

He was also vain, proud, and changeable, traits that made him easy prey for flatterers and lickspittles, but these flaws were not immediately apparent to most at the time of his ascension. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

His father's court had been made up largely of older, seasoned men, many of whom had also served during the reign of King Aegon V. Aerys II dismissed them one and all, replacing them with lords of his own generation. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

The king replaced him as Hand with Lord Owen Merryweather, an aged and amiable lickspittle famed for laughing loudest at every jape and witticism uttered by the king, no matter how feeble. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

The Mad King could be savagely cruel, as seen most plainly when he burned those he perceived to be his enemies, but he could also be extravagant, showering men who pleased him with honors, offices, and lands. The lickspittle lords who surrounded Aerys II had gained much and more from the king's madness and eagerly seized upon any opportunity to speak ill of Prince Rhaegar and inflame the father's suspicions of the son. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

"A weak ruler needs a strong Hand, as Aerys needed Father. A strong ruler requires only a diligent servant to carry out his orders." (AFFC Jaime II)

The Kettleblacks would charm her, take her coin, and promise her anything she asked, and why not, when Bronn was matching every copper penny, coin for coin? Amiable rogues all three, the brothers were in truth much more skilled at deceit than they'd ever been at bloodletting. Cersei had managed to buy herself three hollow drums; they would make all the fierce booming sounds she required, but there was nothing inside. (ACOK Tyrion IX)

My councillors. Cersei had uprooted every rose, and all those beholden to her uncle and her brothers. In their places were men whose loyalty would be to her. She had even given them new styles, borrowed from the Free Cities; the queen would have no “masters” at court beside herself. (AFFC Cersei IV)

Grand Maester Pycelle had wanted an older man “more seasoned in the ways of war” to command the gold cloaks, and several of her other councillors had agreed with him. “Ser Osfryd is seasoned quite sufficiently,” she had told them, but even that did not shut them up. They yap at me like a pack of small, annoying dogs. (AFFC Cersei V)

"She would have done better to leave the tower and burn her Hand. Harys Swyft? If ever a man deserved his arms, it is Ser Harys. And Gyles Rosby, Seven save us, I thought he died years ago. Merryweather ... your father used to call his grandsire 'the Chuckler,' I'll have you know. Tywin claimed the only thing Merryweather was good for was chuckling at the king's witticisms. His lordship chuckled himself right into exile, as I recall. Cersei has put some bastard on the council too, and a kettle in the Kingsguard. (AFFC Jaime V)

Besides the Kettleblacks (as shown above), Cersei rewards many other people that are rarely, if ever, willing to question her - Harys Swyft, Orton Merryweather, Aurane Waters, Gyles Rosby, Meryn Trant, Qyburn (the only one who doesn't turn his back on Cersei after she falls from power), etc. The only one that disagrees with her decisions regularly is Pycelle, which is why she rebukes him quite a few times throughout AFFC. Also, while Cersei considers Aerys a weak ruler, they both believe that their Hands should be servants that know their place and follow them blindly.

Dany doesn't restrict herself to only listening to the people she agrees with. She welcomes dissent multiple times throughout the books and so, consequently, her council gives voice to multiple groups (from the Unsullied to the freedmen to the former slavers to the Dothraki).

Both alienate and undermine important allies because of disagreements that could have been mended and fears that lead both rulers to perceive these potential allies as enemies

Aerys II:

The growing rift between the king and the King's Hand was also apparent in the matter of appointments. Whereas previously His Grace had always heeded his Hand's counsel, bestowing offices, honors, and inheritances as Lord Tywin recommended, after 270 AC he began to disregard the men put forward by his lordship in favor of his own choices. Many westermen found themselves dismissed from the king's service for no better cause than the suspicion that they might be "Hand's men." In their places, King Aerys appointed his own favorites...but the king's favor had become a chancy thing, his mistrust easy to awaken. Even the Hand's own kin were not exempt from royal displeasure. When Lord Tywin wished to name his brother Ser Tygett Lannister as the Red Keep's master-at-arms, King Aerys gave the post to Ser Willem Darry instead. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Perhaps seeking to gain advantage of His Grace's high spirits, Lord Tywin chose that very night to suggest that it was past time the king's heir wed and produced an heir of his own; he proposed his own daughter, Cersei, as wife for the crown prince. Aerys II rejected this proposal brusquely, informing Lord Tywin that he was a good and valuable servant, yet a servant nonetheless. Nor did His Grace agree to appoint Lord Tywin's son Jaime as squire to Prince Rhaegar; that honor he granted instead to the sons of several of his own favorites, men known to be no friends of House Lannister or the Hand. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Lord Denys, seeing that Aerys's erratic behavior had begun to strain his relations with Lord Tywin, refused to pay the taxes expected of him and instead invited the king to come to Duskendale and hear his petition. It seems most unlikely that King Aerys would ever have considered accepting this invitation...until Lord Tywin advised him to refuse in the strongest possible terms, whereupon the king decided to accept, informing Grand Maester Pycelle and the small council that he meant to settle this matter himself and bring the defiant Darklyn to heel. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

Garth the Gross on the small council and his two bastards in the gold cloaks ... do the Tyrells think I will just serve the realm up to them on a gilded platter? The arrogance of it took her breath away.

“Garth has served me well as Lord Seneschal, as he served my father before me,” Tyrell was going on. “Littlefinger had a nose for gold, I grant you, but Garth—”

“My lord,” Cersei broke in, “I fear there has been some misunderstanding. I have asked Lord Gyles Rosby to serve as our new master of coin, and he has done me the honor of accepting.”

Mace gaped at her. “Rosby? That ... cougher? But ... the matter was agreed, Your Grace. Garth is on his way to Oldtown.”

“Best send a raven to Lord Hightower and ask him to make certain your uncle does not take ship. We would hate for Garth to brave an autumn sea for nought.” She smiled pleasantly.

A flush crept up Tyrell’s thick neck. “This ... your lord father assured me ...” (AFFC Cersei II)

Cersei had named her cousin Damion Lannister her castellan for the Rock, and another cousin, Ser Daven Lannister, the Warden of the West. Insolence has its price, Uncle. (AFFC Cersei III)

“I have been remiss. With a realm to rule, a war to fight, and a father to mourn, somehow I overlooked the crucial matter of naming a new master-at-arms. I shall rectify that error at once.”

Ser Loras pushed back a brown curl that had fallen across his forehead. “Your Grace will not find any man half so skilled with sword and lance as I.”

Humble, aren’t we? “Tommen is your king, not your squire. You are to fight for him and die for him, if need be. No more.”

She left him on the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat with its bed of iron spikes and entered Maegor’s Holdfast alone. Where am I to find a master-at-arms? she wondered as she climbed to her apartments. [...]

Aron Santagar was Dornish, Cersei recalled. I could send to Dorne. Centuries of blood and war lay between Sunspear and Highgarden. Yes, a Dornishman might suit my needs admirably. There must be some good swords in Dorne. (AFFC Cersei V)

He had even had the temerity to object to her sending to Dorne for a master-at-arms, on the grounds that it might offend the Tyrells. “Why do you think I’m doing it?” she had asked him scornfully. (AFFC Cersei VI)

“Your Grace, let me take Dragonstone.”

[...] No one had given Cersei such a lovely gift since Sansa Stark had run to her to divulge Lord Eddard’s plans. She was pleased to see that Margaery had gone pale. “Your courage takes my breath away, Ser Loras. [...] Swear to me that you shall not return until Dragonstone is Tommen’s.”

“I shall, Your Grace.” He rose.

[...] Pycelle had to struggle to keep up. “If it please Your Grace,” he puffed, “young men are overbold, and think only of the glory of battle and never of its dangers. Ser Loras ... this plan of his is fraught with peril. To storm the very walls of Dragonstone ...”

“... is very brave. [...] I have no doubt that our Knight of Flowers will be the first man to gain the battlements.” And perhaps the first to fall. (AFFC Cersei VII)

Dany doesn't do this; instead, she makes plenty of concessions to appease her influential allies, from wearing the tokar to marrying Hizdahr by Ghiscari rites if he gives her ninety days of peace to allowing Hizdahr to reopen the fighting pits to accepting a deal between Meereen and Yunkai that allows the latter to reinstall slavery. All of these decisions are ultimately mistakes since they unwittingly prioritize the privileges of the former masters over the rights of the former slaves, but they still show that Dany is capable of making alliances in a way that Aerys II and Cersei aren't due to their black and white thinking.

Both are extravagant rulers who plan grand schemes that are never realized

Aerys II:

His Grace was full of grand schemes as well. Not long after his coronation, he announced his intent to conquer the Stepstones and make them a part of his realm for all time. In 264 AC, a visit to King's Landing by Lord Rickard Stark of Winterfell awakened his interest in the North, and he hatched a plan to build a new Wall a hundred leagues north of the existing one and claim all the lands between. In 265 AC, offended by "the stink of King's Landing," he spoke of building a "white city" entirely of marble on the south bank of the Blackwater Rush. In 267 AC, after a dispute with the Iron Bank of Braavos regarding certain monies borrowed by his father, he announced that he would build the largest war fleet in the history of the world "to bring the Titan to his knees." In 270 AC, during a visit to Sunspear, he told the Princess of Dorne that he would "make the Dornish deserts bloom" by digging a great underground canal beneath the mountains to bring water down from the rainwood.

None of these grandiose plans ever came to fruition; most, indeed, were forgotten within a moon's turn, for Aerys II seemed to grow bored with his royal enthusiasms as quickly as he did his royal paramours. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

“Would that we could do the same to the rest of this foul castle,” said Cersei. “After the war I mean to build a new palace beyond the river.” She had dreamed of it the night before last, a magnificent white castle surrounded by woods and gardens, long leagues from the stinks and noise of King’s Landing. “This city is a cesspit. For half a groat I would move the court to Lannisport and rule the realm from Casterly Rock.” (AFFC Cersei III)

A group of merchants appeared before her to beg the throne to intercede for them with the Iron Bank of Braavos. The Braavosi were demanding repayment of their outstanding debts, it seemed, and refusing all new loans. We need our own bank, Cersei decided, the Golden Bank of Lannisport. (AFFC Cersei VIII)

That's not the case with Dany either. Throughout her reign, she only makes reasonable and attainable decisions to improve Meereen's economy, such as planting grapes, beans and wheat, replanting olive trees, making an alliance with the Lhazareen and freeing the slaves of the hinterlands to bring crops to the city.

Both are unpopular with the common people

Aerys II: (note that Tywin himself is unpopular with the smallfolk)

They cheered Father twice as loudly as they cheered the king, the queen recalled, but only half as loudly as they cheered Prince Rhaegar. (AFFC Cersei V)

Cersei:

As she made her way through the ragged throng, past their cookfires, wagons, and crude shelters, the queen found herself remembering another crowd that had once gathered on this plaza. The day she wed Robert Baratheon, thousands had turned out to cheer for them. [...]

No one was smiling now. The looks the sparrows gave her were dull, sullen, hostile. They made way but reluctantly. (AFFC Cersei VI)

Thrice that day she heard the sound of distant shouting drifting up from the plaza, but it was Margaery’s name that the mob was calling, not hers. (AFFC Cersei X)

We have yet to see how the common people in Westeros will view Dany, but she is very popular among freedmen and slaves from all over Essos, so she doesn't fit this either.

Both feel threatened by the shadow of Tywin Lannister

Aerys II:

By this time, King Aerys had become aware of the widespread belief that he himself was but a hollow figurehead and Tywin Lannister the true master of the Seven Kingdoms. These sentiments greatly angered the king, and His Grace became determined to disprove them and to humble his "overmighty servant" and "put him back into his place." (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

“Lord Tywin was a great man, an extraordinary man,” he declared ponderously after he had kissed both her cheeks. “We shall never see his like again, I fear.”

You are looking at his like, fool, Cersei thought. It is his daughter standing here before you. (AFFC Cersei II)

She was tired of Jaime balking her. No one had ever balked her lord father. When Tywin Lannister spoke, men obeyed. When Cersei spoke, they felt free to counsel her, to contradict her, even refuse her. (AFFC Cersei V)

This is not a perfect parallel because Cersei alternates between hero-worshiping and drawing inspiration and strength from Tywin to resenting the control he had over her, so much so that she lists her father alongside her enemies and takes pleasure in the fact that he's now dead. Even so, both Aerys II and Cersei feel that they were owed the treatment that people gave Tywin.

This doesn't happen with Dany because she doesn't feel threatened by anyone nor does Tywin play an important role in her story.

Both feel threatened by a younger, more beautiful, more popular would-be king/queen

Aerys II:

The cheers of the crowd were said to be deafening, but King Aerys did not join them. Far from being proud and pleased by his heir's skill at arms, His Grace saw it as a threat. Lords Chelsted and Staunton inflamed his suspicions further, declaring that Prince Rhaegar had entered the lists to curry favor with the commons and remind the assembled lords that he was a puissant warrior, a true heir to Aegon the Conqueror. (TWOIAF The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring)

The lickspittle lords who surrounded Aerys II had gained much and more from the king's madness and eagerly seized upon any opportunity to speak ill of Prince Rhaegar and inflame the father's suspicions of the son. (TWOIAF The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring)

Meanwhile, King Aerys was becoming ever more estranged from his own son and heir. Early in the year 279 AC, Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, was formally betrothed to Princess Elia Martell, the delicate young sister of Doran Martell, Prince of Dorne. They were wed the following year, in a lavish ceremony at the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing, but Aerys II did not attend. He told the small council that he feared an attempt upon his life if he left the confines of the Red Keep, even with his Kingsguard to protect him. Nor would he allow his younger son, Viserys, to attend his brother's wedding. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

The memory was still bitter. Old Lord Whent had announced the tourney shortly after a visit from his brother, Ser Oswell Whent of the Kingsguard. With Varys whispering in his ear, King Aerys became convinced that his son was conspiring to depose him, that Whent's tourney was but a ploy to give Rhaegar a pretext for meeting with as many great lords as could be brought together. Aerys had not set foot outside the Red Keep since Duskendale, yet suddenly he announced that he would accompany Prince Rhaegar to Harrenhal, and everything had gone awry from there. (ADWD The Kingbreaker)

Cersei:

Her mood was not improved when Mace Tyrell arose to lead the toasts. He raised a golden goblet high, smiling at his pretty little daughter, and in a booming voice said, “To the king and queen!” The other sheep all baaaaaaed along with him. “The king and queen!” they cried, smashing their cups together. “The king and queen!” She had no choice but to drink along with them, all the time wishing that the guests had but a single face, so she could throw her wine into their eyes and remind them that she was the true queen. (AFFC Cersei III)

“Your Grace, she ... she is the queen ...”

“I am the queen. (AFFC Cersei IX)

It was a pity that Maggy the Frog was dead. Piss on your prophecy, old woman. The little queen may be younger than I, but she has never been more beautiful, and soon she will be dead. (AFFC Cersei IX)

Cersei's case is more justified in that she believes that, by defeating the YMBQ, she'll also prevent her children from dying and the valonqar from killing her.

This doesn't happen with Dany.

Both lost a child (children, in Aerys’s case) and fear for the safety of their remaining child (children, in Cersei’s case) to the point that these concerns become intertwined with their fears that someone is out to get them

Aerys II:

Cersei:

I am dreaming still, Cersei thought. I have not woken, nor has my nightmare ended. Tyrion will creep out from under the bed soon and begin to laugh at me.

[...] A dream, that’s all it was, a dream. I drank too much last night, these fears are only humors born of wine. I will be the one laughing, come dusk. My children will be safe, Tommen’s throne will be secure, and my twisted little valonqar will be short a head and rotting. (AFFC Cersei I)

Cersei had a sudden vision of the dwarf crawling out from behind a tapestry in Tommen’s bedchamber with blade in hand. Tommen is well guarded, she told herself. But Lord Tywin had been well guarded too. (AFFC Cersei I)

The younger queen whose coming she’d foretold was finished, and if that prophecy could fail, so could the rest. No golden shrouds, no valonqar, I am free of your croaking malice at last. (AFFC Cersei X)

Like in the previous parallel, Cersei's bad reactions are more justified due to the fact that prophecies come true in her world and due to her understandable sense of self-preservation.

This doesn't happen with Dany.

Both had unhappy marriages and believed that their spouses weren’t the right ones for them

Aerys II:

What Tywin Lannister made of this is not recorded, but in 266 AC, at Casterly Rock, Lady Joanna gave birth to a pair of twins, a girl and a boy, "healthy and beautiful, with hair like beaten gold." This birth only exacerbated the tension between Aerys II Targaryen and his Hand. "I appear to have married the wrong woman," His Grace was reported to have said, when informed of the happy event. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

“...Your father will find another man for you, a better man than Rhaegar.”

Her aunt had lied, though, and her father had failed her, just as Jaime was failing her now. Father found no better man. Instead he gave me Robert, and Maggy’s curse bloomed like some poisonous flower. If she had only married Rhaegar as the gods intended, he would never have looked twice at the wolf girl. Rhaegar would be our king today and I would be his queen, the mother of his sons.

She had never forgiven Robert for killing him. (AFFC Cersei V)

The major difference in this parallel, of course, is that Aerys raped his wife and Cersei was raped by her husband.

This doesn't happen with Dany.

Comparisons in the text between Aerys II and Cersei

"Let all of King's Landing see the flames. It will be a lesson to our enemies."

"Now you sound like Aerys."

Her nostrils flared. "Guard your tongue, ser." (AFFC Cersei III)

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. (AFFC Jaime II)

"Westeros is torn and bleeding, and I do not doubt that even now my sweet sister is binding up the wounds … with salt. Cersei is as gentle as King Maegor, as selfless as Aegon the Unworthy, as wise as Mad Aerys. She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honor, for love. Tommen's rule is bolstered by all of the alliances that my lord father built so carefully, but soon enough she will destroy them, every one.” (ADWD Tyrion VI)

Again, as I said above, the comparisons between Cersei and Aerys II come from two of the people who have known Cersei the longest (Jaime, Tyrion).

Meanwhile, Dany is only called the Mad King’s daughter by her enemies (the slavers and Mace Tyrell). The characters who actually know her and the characters who have nothing to gain by defaming her (Barristan, Tyrion, Illyrio, Quentyn) reiterate that she’s nothing like him.

#aerys ii targaryen #cersei lannister #daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta

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felicjana050896 · 3 years ago

Text

Dream: Jaime and Jon

I used to post this post before, but now it's improved and more aesthetic :)

Jaime’s dream:

I will not rewrite Jaime's entire dream, it is in ASOS, Jaime VI.

A lot of people think it's Casterly Rock because that's what it says at the beginning, but..., Jaime says it's Casterly Rock, just because it's surrounded by stone walls, it's in a stone castle, we still have it went to a cave with shallow water, but he did not know it, and it is rather unlikely that the potential heir of Casterly Rock, who grew up in it, would not completely know the cave that was part of it, especially as he himself states:

There’s no place like that beneath the Rock.

so in my opinion, this is not Casterly Rock, but a different place. Some say that this is probably the Red Keep, but Jaime also knows the Red Keep and knows the tunnels beneath them, not to mention that the Red Keep is made of "red stone", brick, not plain gray stone... That's why in my opinion it's about Dragonstone, Dragonstone fits perfectly, especially if Jaime is a descendant of Aerys. Dark figures with golden hair, not the Lannisters, but the Targaryens, they also had golden hair, not only white, and most often their hair was golden with silver highlights.

Beware of the water, he told himself. There may be various creatures in the depths…

This is of course a prelude to the fight between Jaime and Euron, if Euron gets Rheagal:

And there came a second crack, loud and sharp as thunder, and the smoke stirred and whirled around her and the pyre shifted, the logs exploding as the fire touched their secret hearts. She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror. (AGOT, Daenerys X)

Who could frighten the fearless Dothraki themselves more than Euron?

And whoever rides Rheagal must have something to do with the thunder, the storm:

”I am the storm, my lord. The first storm, and the last.” (AFFC, The Reaver)

The torches along the walls were burning bright, and so was he, blue lips, blue eye, and all. (AFFC, The Reaver)

Vicatrion describes Euron above, whether it is a announcement that Euron will die burned by dragon fire..., Jaime/Viserion - Euron/Rhaegal - Daenerys/Drogon fight, which the performer will win Daenerys and Drogon:

From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies (ACOK, Daenerys IV)

This tower is the Hightower in the Oldtown that will be attacked by Euron.

And Euron will burn, Rhaegal will get into Theon? Through the horn he will be bound to the blood of the Greyjoy:

What had she been thinking, that he would whistle up a winged horse and fly her out of here, like some hero in the stories she and Sansa used to love? (ADWD, The Prince of Winterfell)

“Unless you have a horse with wings like a raven. Do you?”

“No.” Jon felt like a fool. (AGOT, Jon IX)

Horses and wings are a theme in asoiaf:

The silver horse leapt the flames as if she had wings. (AGOT, Daenerys II)

"If we were eagles we might fly," said Jojen sharply, "but we have no wings, no more than we have horses." (ASOS, Bran I)

ghosts and ghouls, mermaids, rock goblins, winged horses, winged pigs … winged lions." (ADWD, Tyrion III)

While probably many people will take the above quote as proof/hint that Tyrion will ride a dragon, for me it's a red herring though, like many of them in asoiaf, a lion will ride a dragon but not this lion.

Of course in the dream we see Tywin, Cersei and Joffrey, at first Joffrey (his death) leaves, then Tywin gives the sword to Jaime (Tywin gives Oathkeeper to Jaime), then Tywin leaves (dies), then to Jaime is joined by Brienne, who says "sword", the same word she utters to confirm to Lady Stoneheart that he will do her will and bring Jaime (confirmed by George himself in an interview).

“The flames will burn so long as you live,” he heard Cersei call. “When they die, so must you.”

As long as Jaime lives, the swords will burn, with his death, the swords will die, both. Then Cersei leaves, and so dies, killed by Jaime, Jaime is already with Brienne by then.

“Do they keep a bear down here?” Brienne was moving, slow and wary, sword to hand; step, turn, and listen. Each step made a little splash. “A cave lion? Direwolves? Some bear? Tell me, Jaime. What lives here? What lives in the darkness?”

“Doom.” No bear, he knew. No lion. “Only doom.”

Here Brienne asks if they are keeping a bear, a cave lion, a direwolf, a bear here. The bear is repeated twice, which is Brienne's announcement in the bear pit. But Jaime replies that it is doom, not a bear, not a lion, just doom. Importantly, Jaime does not mention the direwolf, which shows that the direwolf, i.e. Bran, is the doom, he lurks in the dark.

And now Jon's dream:

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. “Father?” he called. “Bran? Rickon?” No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. “Uncle?” he called. “Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me.” Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. “Ygritte?” he whispered. “Forgive me. Please.” But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark... (ASOS, Jon VIII)

So step by step:

Jon dreamed he came back to Winterfell and it was actually Winterfell. = In Jaime's dream, Jaime thinks he came back to Casterly Rock, but Casterly Rock wasn't.

In Jon's dream, the old kings, the ghosts of the past, the ghosts of the Stark, tell him that this is not his place because he is not Stark (and that is a fact of course, because he is Targaryen). = In Jaime's dream, his ghosts told him, that this is his place (Confirmation/hint that Jaime is a Targaryen).

Both Jaime and Jon were going deeper and deeper into the darkness, except that in Jaime's dream, Jaime realized he should go up, not down, and he was going down, or rather running away, just because of soldiers who pursue him, while in Jon's dream, we do not have such thoughts, Jon himself voluntarily ventures further and further into the darkness.

In his dream, Jon calls his father (Ned), Bran, Rickon, Uncle Benjen twice and his father twice and asks for his help (i.nterestingly, Jon calls neither Robb nor Arya nor Sansa ...) but no one appears and he calls out for help from his father, but does not get it. = In Jaime's dream, we have Joffrey, Tywin and Cersei, Jaime doesn't have to call them because they are already there, but they walk away from him and he asks them not to leave him, finally asks for a sword and Tywin gives it to him.

Jon in his dream is crippled here, it's all about crutches and even falls, to emphasize this. = In Jaime's dream, Jaime has both hands, he is not crippled, he is alive and well.

It gets darker in Jon's crypts, and Jon thinks to himself, "The light's gone somewhere." and then she whispers to Ygritte, "Forgive me. Please. ". = Jaime's dream does not get any darker, though they are surrounded by darkness, Jaime's and Brienne's swords protect them from that darkness." He burned with a silver-blue glow that scattered the shadow. " “Brienne's sword also glowed with silver-blue fire. The darkness has receded a little further. ” = Jon calls Ygritte and the same light, she is gone, as is the light gone, while Jaime has Brienne and she has the light.

In Jon's dream, a gray, golden-eyed direwolf appears, probably Bran's direwolf, his eyes glowing with a sad glow, and he himself looks terrible and covered in blood. = In Jaime's dream, Brienne asks what lurks in the dark and how I "showed" above, it is a direwolf, a direwolf that is doom, which is just Bran.

Jaime and Jon's dream is one and the same (apart from some details, Jaime's dream is longer, and we have additional things there, e.g. watch out for creatures in the depths, or a prophecy about Tywin's death, etc.), with that, that inverted.

#jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #jon snow #asoiaf #bran stark #dream #weirwood dream

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weirwoodking · 4 years ago

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what do you think sansa's endgame is? and i'm not talking ships. like what do you think she'll be doing by the time the books end.

Anon, you accidentally made me write an essay.

So, to try and guess where Sansa could be at the end of the story, we have to look at where she’s heading currently.

She’s currently in the Vale, stuck under the control of Littlefinger. I think Sansa’s arc in TWOW will revolve around breaking free of his manipulation. There’s a line in Bran’s first ASOS chapter that seems to foreshadow this:

Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no voice.

These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. 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. The wolf prince remembered.

—Bran I, A Storm of Swords

It’s hard to find the path back out, but not impossible. I do believe Sansa will return to “the wilds” that belong to her and her siblings.

George was asked once if Sansa still has skinchanging powers even though Lady is gone, and he said she does. We’ll probably see that aspect of her character start to make an appearance in Winds, especially since the presence of magic ramps up with each book. I think it would make sense if she bonded with a bird (such as a falcon or a hawk), seeing as she has quite a lot of bird imagery (particularly caged bird imagery) in her story. Sansa “flying free”, both literally and figuratively, seems like a logical step for her arc.

I do wonder how her connection with the “pack” will be handled. All of the Stark kids except for Sansa have the telepathic bond through their wolves, so I wonder what GRRM will do with Sansa there. It’s heartbreaking, that she doesn’t have that mental connection that the others do. I don’t know if that could somehow be reformed without Lady? There are a lot of unanswered questions about the Stark kids skinchanging powers (and the telepathic bond). Why did their powers only show up when the wolves did? How far do their powers go? How powerful could they become once they’re properly trained? How does the telepathic bond work? Is that a thing that other skinchangers can do? Is it there because of the wolves or is it through the kids themselves? Is it forever broken with Sansa because Lady is gone, or could Sansa reform that connection through another wolf that joins the Stark warg pack? Would it make sense narratively and thematically for GRRM to give Sansa another wolf?

Anyway, no idea what he’ll do with that. (Some sort of scene where Sansa is like “I don’t have a wolf anymore”, and then all the other Starklings crowd around her for a giant group hug and say “that’s okay, you’re still a part of the pack no matter what” is something I could see happening. It’s not like the other kids would treat her any less for not having a direwolf, she’s still their sister.)

A common speculation I see for Sansa’s endgame is that she could become the new head of House Arryn. And, well, the aesthetic of Sansa being Lady of the Eyrie/Lord Protector of the Vale/Warden of the East is definitely cool. The Queen of Birds up in a mountain palace with her flock all around her like a winged army? That’s some gorgeous imagery.

But...

I don’t think Sansa would ever willingly choose to stay in the Vale if she had the option to go home to Winterfell:

She awoke all at once, every nerve atingle. For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya. But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie. And I am Alayne Stone, a bastard girl. The room was cold and black, though she was warm beneath the blankets. Dawn had not yet come. Sometimes she dreamed of Ser Ilyn Payne and woke with her heart thumping, but this dream had not been like that. Home. It was a dream of home.

The Eyrie was no home.

—Sansa VII, A Storm of Swords

One of the largest themes in the stories of the younger POV characters (Theon, Jon, Dany, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon (even though he’s not a POV character)) is that of home. Just go on A Search of Ice and Fire and search for the word “home” in each of those characters’ chapters. I think Sansa will end up at her home, with her pack. We know she must return at Winterfell at some point, as she has the final part of this prophecy to fulfill:

"I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief," the dwarf woman was saying. "I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow."

—Arya VIII, A Storm of Swords

The wolf howling in the rain is Grey Wind (or Shaggydog/Rickon, since it’s raining on Skagos when Jon dreams of his “black brother”), the clangor is the Red Wedding and the bells are the ones on Jinglebell’s hat when Catelyn sawed at his throat, and the maid at the feast is Sansa. And Sansa will “slay a savage giant in a castle built of snow.” That castle is obviously Winterfell, although the fandom has yet to concretely agree on who the “savage giant” is.

Evidently, Sansa will return to Winterfell, and she probably has to get there before winter really starts setting in, or else the journey would be nearly impossible in the deadly weather. So, probably at some point in the next book.

Now, I believe that there’s a big moment coming for Sansa in TWOW: the moment where she unrepresses/uncovers her memories. Sansa knows a lot of important things. She knows the truth about Jon Arryn, she knows that her hair net was used to poison Joffrey, she knows that Littlefinger was involved in the disappearance of Jeyne Poole. Sansa’s memory swapping/adjusting/erasing/repressing (whatever you wanna call it) is important to her character. It’s her brain’s way of coping with the trauma she’s been through.

I think that one of these memories coming to the forefront is going to trigger something big: Littlefinger’s downfall. I speculate that what will most likely come out in the open first is what happened to Jeyne Poole. Sansa finding out what Baelish did to her closest childhood friend could definitely be what turns her against him.

Warning, I’m going to mention the sh*w here for a second. George has said that he wrote Sansa and Jeyne’s interactions into season 1, and that he tried to build Jeyne as a character, but her scenes were cut by the showrunners. Clearly, George cares about her, her friendship with Sansa, and her value in the story, he was very upset about the deletion of her character and of Sansa’s friendship with her.* I believe the reveal of what happened to Jeyne will be a major part of Sansa’s story in Winds. She’s repressed her memories of Jeyne and her disappearance because it is, understandably, too much for her mind to handle thinking about.

The reveal of this memory could be a catalyst to the other memories coming forward, especially since they involve Littlefinger. I think Sansa will be a key part in wrapping up the political aspect of the story, she can reveal the truth of why the Stark-Lannister conflict began all the way back in book 1. She can expose Littlefinger’s lies and schemes. That’s where I think her narrative is heading, at least in TWOW.

I’m not sure what Sansa’s story arc will be in ADOS (I’m not sure what anyone’s story will be in ADOS, but Sansa’s is a bit more of a blank page than others). If the Littlefinger conflict gets wrapped up in TWOW, I don’t know where her story will go from there. Supposedly, she could be in Winterfell at that point. What will happen then… well, then it’s Long Night time. Sansa is not one of the “key five players” (Tyrion, Dany, Arya, Bran, and Jon), but I still think she’ll have an important role in the book. I think Sansa and Arya’s relationship is something that will be focused on a lot through both of their chapters in the final novel. We’re going to see Ned’s quote, “you need her, as she needs you”, really matter.

No matter where her arc goes over the next two books, though, I do think she’ll end up at Winterfell. And like I said, I don’t think Sansa would choose to leave her home again after returning. I think that her story will end with her staying at Winterfell with the other kids. The Stark children would never willingly leave each other after reuniting. Jon literally describes the separation from his siblings as “a deep ache of emptiness, a sense of incompleteness.” And, of course, the iconic line Ned delivers to Arya: “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” I don’t see any of their endings being them as “lone wolves” again.

So, to answer your question, I think the endgame for Sansa will be her back in Winterfell with her family, where she belongs, where she is strongest. I do suspect, however, that there will be some sort of epilogue at the end of ADOS, possibly a “10 years later” or somewhere along those lines. Where she’ll be then, I have no idea. She’ll probably be involved with something politically by then, like ruling or advising.

*Based on what George himself has said about the show’s post-season 4 portrayal of Sansa, I don’t think her story will be similar in any way to the show’s very different version of her character (same goes for everyone). George is typically very mild when talking about the show, saying stuff like “they chose to go down a different path with the story”, but this is one of the only times he flat out criticized the show for how wrong it is. He was very upset the show cut out her storyline. He has also said that “every character has a different end” in the books. So take from that what you will.

#this got really long wow #but i feel like the most interesting and important parts of sansa’s story are going to be what she does in the next two books #not necessarily where she ends up at the end #imo #anon #ask #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #sansa stark #twow #ados

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jackoshadows · 5 years ago

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So this is a write up on the Jon Snow - Sansa Stark relationship in the books with quotes and excerpts. For the folks who are interested in knowing where these two characters really stand with each other rather than the fanon version that’s often seen on the interwebs.

The relationship between Jon and Sansa can be best described as ‘Indifferent and distant siblings’ and they are the least close out of all the Starks.

The 5 times Jon mentions Sansa in his 42 POV chapters include thoughts on Sansa brushing lady and singing, Sansa being with Arya in KL and losing Lady, her being enchanted if she sees the magical wall, and her telling him how to talk to girls. Like Arya often does, Jon qualifies his description of Sansa with an ‘even’ to indicate how she is different to his other siblings.

He missed his true brothers: little Rickon, bright eyes shining as he begged for a sweet; Robb, his rival and best friend and constant companion; Bran, stubborn and curious, always wanting to follow and join in whatever Jon and Robb were doing. He missed the girls too, even Sansa, who never called him anything but "my half brother" since she was old enough to understand what bastard meant. And Arya . . . he missed her even more than Robb, skinny little thing that she was, all scraped knees and tangled hair and torn clothes, so fierce and willful.

Compare the descriptions he gives his other siblings to what he says about Sansa. I have often read that Sansa calling Jon ‘Half brother’ or bastard was not a big deal because all of Jon’s siblings did it. And this is true. But the difference is that Sansa ALWAYS made sure to treat Jon that way, when his other siblings interacted with Jon normally. Something that Jon noticed enough that this was the only thing that he highlights for her.

It’s clear from the text that Sansa treated Jon with condescending pity. I would argue that Sansa’s treatment of Arya was actually far worse than the way she treated Jon. For Sansa, Jon was just a low class bastard and his faults were only natural because he was ‘common’. Sansa even condescends to educate him on how to properly talk to girls. Arya on the other hand got bullied because she was a high class noble but committed the sin of being unsatisfactory in terms of looks and behavior.

Sansa could never understand how two sisters, born only two years apart, could be so different. It would have been easier if Arya had been a bastard, like their half brother Jon. She even looked like Jon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing of their lady mother in her face or her coloring. And Jon's mother had been common, or so people whispered. Once, when she was littler, Sansa had even asked Mother if perhaps there hadn't been some mistake.

This is why it made no sense when the show had Sansa apologizing to Jon and completely bypassed Sansa’s treatment of Arya in the books, making it look like Arya was the mean sister. If Sansa had to apologize to anyone it would be to Arya and not Jon.

Sansa’s patronizing pity for Jon comes from the fact that he is of low birth. She attributes emotions like ‘jealousy’ to his birth and pities him for it

Sansa sighed as she stitched. "Poor Jon," she said. "He gets jealous because he's a bastard." - AGoT

If this was what the Night’s Watch was truly like, she felt sorry for her bastard half brother, Jon. - AGoT

She sang for mercy, for the living and the dead alike, for Bran and Rickon and Robb, for her sister Arya and her bastard brother Jon Snow, away off on the Wall. - AGoT

These are the only times Jon is mentioned in Sansa’s POV chapters till AFfC.

When we come to their emotional thoughts of connection and longing and love, let’s see what happens there. For Jon:

He remembered the day he had left Winterfell, all the bittersweet farewells; Bran lying broken, Robb with snow in his hair, Arya raining kisses on him after he’d given her Needle.

Even the thought made him feel foolish; he was a man grown now, a black brother of the Night’s Watch, not the boy who’d once sat at Old Nan’s feet with Bran and Robb and Arya.

That might mean Lord Eddard would return to Winterfell, and his sisters as well. He might even be allowed to visit them, with Lord Mormont’s permission. It would be good to see Arya’s grin again and to talk with his father.

Jon Snow straightened himself and took a long deep breath. Forgive me, Father. Robb, Arya, Bran . . . forgive me, I cannot help you. He has the truth of it. This is my place.

Playing, Jon thought in astonishment, grown men playing like children, throwing snowballs the way Bran and Arya once did, and Robb and me before them.

We know Sansa has played with Bran and Arya and snowballs. But she is not included in Jon’s nostalgic memories.

We see something similar in Sansa’s POV chapters about her family

Tommen was all of eight. He reminded her of her own little brother, Bran. They were of an age. Bran was back at Winterfell, a cripple, yet safe. Sansa would have given anything to be with him.

If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters, too. In Sansa's dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya.

Merry Crane always had an amusing story, and little Lady Bulwer reminded her of Arya, though not so fierce.

She had last seen snow the day she'd left Winterfell. That was a lighter fall than this, she remembered. Robb had melting flakes in his hair when he hugged me, and the snowball Arya tried to make kept coming apart in her hands.

I don't want any Lannister, she wanted to say. I want Willas, I want Highgarden and the puppies and the barge, and sons named Eddard and Bran and Rickon.

That was such a sweet dream, Sansa thought drowsily. She had been back in Winterfell, running through the godswood with her Lady. Her father had been there, and her brothers, all of them warm and safe. If only dreaming could make it so . . .

If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now.

She remembered a summer's snow in Winterfell when Arya and Bran had ambushed her as she emerged from the keep one morning. They'd each had a dozen snowballs to hand, and she'd had none. Bran had been perched on the roof of the covered bridge, out of reach, but Sansa had chased Arya through the stables and around the kitchen until both of them were breathless.

She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya.

Jon is completely absent from her thoughts about her childhood in Winterfell and missing her family.

Let’s next look at how Jon treats Arya and Sansa’s respective marriages to Stark enemies. Upon being told by Stannis that Sansa is now lady Lannister, Jon’s immediate thoughts about all this is how Tyrion is faring as a kinslayer! He does not spare a single thought for a sister forcefully married off or her whereabouts and if she was doing okay. Contrast his complete indifference to Robb and Catelyn’s reaction to this news:

Robb took her hand. "They married her to Tyrion Lannister." Catelyn's fingers clutched at his. "The Imp." "He's the Kingslayer's brother. Oathbreaking runs in their blood." Robb's fingers brushed the pommel of his sword. "If I could I'd take his ugly head off. Sansa would be a widow then, and free. There's no other way that I can see. They made her speak the vows before a septon and don a crimson cloak." Catelyn remembered the twisted little man she had seized at the crossroads inn and carried all the way to the Eyrie. "I should have let Lysa push him out her Moon Door. My poor sweet Sansa . . . why would anyone do this to her?" - ASoS

Their rage here is exactly what Jon feels when he hears about Arya’s marriage

By now she’d be eleven, Jon thought. Still a child. “I have no sister. Only brothers. Only you.” Lady Catelyn would have rejoiced to hear those words, he knew. That did not make them easier to say. His fingers closed around the parchment. Would that they could crush Ramsay Bolton’s throat as easily. - ADwD

Sansa is the same when it comes to her complete indifference to Jon. We hear all the time about how Sansa is the queen of compassion and that there’s no character in the whole of asoiaf who is kinder than Sansa Stark. But get this – Sansa has been masquerading as a bastard in the Vale this whole time and not once – not once – does she think of the bastard brother that she grew up with. There is no regret there for how she looked down on her bastard brother.

Catelyn for instance feels a twinge of guilt when she meets Mya Stone in the Vale

It did not please her; it was an effort for Catelyn to keep the smile on her face. Stone was a bastard's name in the Vale, as Snow was in the north, and Flowers in Highgarden; in each of the Seven Kingdoms, custom had fashioned a surname for children born with no names of their own. Catelyn had nothing against this girl, but suddenly she could not help but think of Ned's bastard on the Wall, and the thought made her angry and guilty, both at once. She struggled to find words for a reply.

Meanwhile after being reminded by Myranda Royce that Jon exists, Sansa:

She had not thought of Jon in ages. - AFfC

This is true. The last time she thought of Jon was the three times mentioned above in book one AGoT. Even in book 4 we see Sansa thinking of a way to get away from Littlefinger and never once remembers Jon at the wall.

Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King's Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she'd hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun.

This is a contrast to Arya trying her best to get to the wall and Jon after leaving KL and sadly failing at every attempt. That’s why the show’s decision to reunite Jon and Sansa while leaving out Arya till the very end is a massive disservice to both relationships in the books. GRRM has invested everything in Jon and Arya’s relationship and nothing in Jon and Sansa’s. Arya trying for 3 books to get to Jon and failing and finally getting there? That’s actual payoff. Sansa thinking once of wanting to see the bastard brother that she forgot about? D&D – let’s unite Sansa with Jon!

Much is made of the ‘it would be sweet to see him again’ line, ignoring the couple of lines that comes before.

She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still . . . with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again.

Lines that demonstrate that Sansa STILL does not get it when it comes to class and relationships. Her attitude here is more – oh well, all my real brothers are dead and only Jon is left, so I will have to make do since I have been reduced to his level it’s ok now.

Then there’s the other line – “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa". I have already discussed this in another post but this was more about Jon kicking down the position to the next in line rather than his overwhelming love for Sansa. At this point Jon had already decided not to accept the offer because of Stannis’ precondition that he burn down the Winterfell Godswood. It’s possible that Jon does accept the KITN/Lord of Winterfell position in the next book if Robb’s will comes into the picture.

And finally we have heard often of Jon’s sexist dislike of the ladies when it’s more Jon’s disdain for a type that embodies Catelyn and Sansa. Jon likes the ladies just fine – he has an appreciation for Alys Karstark and she is not running around waving a sword. It’s their personality - a personality that mirrors Arya’s - that he finds attractive.

A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her.

Here Jon demonstrates a weird contempt for ladies brushing their hair. Where does he get this from from I wonder?

Arya was a trial, it must be said. Half a boy and half a wolf pup. Forbid her anything and it became her heart's desire. She had Ned's long face, and brown hair that always looked as though a bird had been nesting in it. I despaired of ever making a lady of her. She collected scabs as other girls collect dolls, and would say anything that came into her head. - Catelyn VII, ACOK

He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird's nest.

And Arya . . . he missed her even more than Robb, skinny little thing that she was, all scraped knees and tangled hair and torn clothes, so fierce and willful.

She had never cared if she was pretty…Only her father had ever called her that. Him, and Jon Snow, sometimes. Her mother used to say she could be pretty if she would wash and brush her hair…the way her sister did. To her sister and her sister’s friends and all the rest, she had just been Arya Horseface."

“…my hair’s messy and my nails are dirty and my feet are all hard.” Robb wouldn’t care about that, probably, but her mother would. Lady Catelyn always wanted her to be like Sansa, to sing and dance and sew and mind her courtesies. Just thinking of it made Arya try to comb her hair with her fingers, but it was all tangles and mats, and all she did was tear some out."

Sansa was a lady at three, always so courteous and eager to please. She loved nothing so well as tales of knightly valor. Men would say she had my look, but she will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was, you can see that. I often sent away her maid so I could brush her hair myself. She had auburn hair, lighter than mine, and so thick and soft . . . the red in it would catch the light of the torches and shine like copper.

Poor Arya’s disdain for hair brushing is probably why Jon looks down on the ladies spending time on their hair. Jon has always considered Arya an outsider like him and sees the both of them as being unfairly treated by the likes of Catelyn and Sansa. Everything that Jon appreciates in a woman shows us glimpses of Arya and everything that Jon dislikes shows us glimpses of Cat and Sansa.

This is indicative of the fact that growing up Arya was pretty much the only positive female figure in his life and that is why he is looking for an ‘Arya’ in the women he loves and befriends. This is why he gives Needle to Arya, allows spearwives to take over an entire castle and defend it and is appreciative of ‘warrior princesses’.

For example, Alys is physically supposed to look like Arya and both Melisandre and Jon mistake her for Arya in her visions. But, it’s only after they interact and speak that Jon compares her to Arya – because it’s her bravery that reminds him of his little sister.

Jon turned to Alys Karstark. “My lady. Are you ready?” “Yes. Oh, yes.” “You’re not scared?” The girl smiled in a way that reminded Jon so much of his little sister that it almost broke his heart. “Let him be scared of me.” The snowflakes were melting on her cheeks, but her hair was wrapped in a swirl of lace that Satin had found somewhere, and the snow had begun to collect there, giving her a frosty crown. Her cheeks were flushed and red, and her eyes sparkled. “Winter’s lady.” Jon squeezed her hand.

There’s also some nonsense being peddled around that Jon had a crush on Sansa because he described her as looking “radiant”. It’s more likely that this is GRRM just being descriptive using character POVs. I mean, we also have Ned gushing about how hot Bobby Baratheon was - thoughts that spawned a thousand NedRob shipping fans...

Fifteen years past, when they had ridden forth to win a throne, the Lord of Storm’s End had been clean-shaven, clear-eyed, and muscled like a maiden’s fantasy. Six and a half feet tall, he towered over lesser men, and when he donned his armor and the great antlered helmet of his House, he became a veritable giant. He’d had a giant’s strength too, his weapon of choice a spiked iron warhammer that Ned could scarcely lift. In those days, the smell of leather and blood had clung to him like perfume.

This does not imply that Ned had a crush on Robert Baratheon. Jon also calls Jaime and Cersei beautiful – does not mean he has a crush on them.

This is Jon’s description of Satin

The boy claimed to be eighteen, older than Jon, but he was green as summer grass for all that. Satin, they called him, even in the wool and mail and boiled leather of the Night’s Watch; the name he’d gotten in the brothel where he’d been born and raised. He was pretty as a girl with his dark eyes, soft skin, and raven’s ringlets.

Soft skin? Uh... But - no offense to the many valid Jon/Satin shippers out there - Jon/Satin is not a cannon romantic relationship unfortunately. Even though there is more interaction and an emotional connection between Jon and Satin in the books to justify shipping them romantically than there is for Jon and Sansa.

So in conclusion, Jon and Sansa have pretty much a non-existent relationship in the books and their plots do not in any way cross or connect with each other. I suspect that will not change in the near future considering Jon is most probably going to become enmeshed in the grand Northern conspiracy that includes Rickon and Arya and has to fight the Others beyond the wall where Bran is. If he does meet up with Sansa, it may well be at the very end as these are two characters who don’t have much of a plot purpose or relationship that requires meeting up.

#Jon Snow #Sansa Stark #Arya Stark #Catelyn Stark #Jon Snow and his relationships with the women in his family #ASoIaF #anti-D&D #anti-GOT #Sansa and Jon #anti Jonsa

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secretlyatargaryen · 4 years ago

Text

On Tyrion and Religion

I was looking through some of my old posts and saw a post that was written in reaction to some people saying that Tyrion was a “dudebro atheist”, and at the time I couldn’t really articulate why I felt that that was wrong, but since then I have read some good writings articulating why the atheism of marginalized people is fundamentally different from that of angry privileged dudes on the internet. I think it’s similar to Tyrion’s relationship with his intelligence, or his sexuality, things that in fandom often get him branded a “dudebro,” but I’ve written before about how Tyrion’s pride in his intelligence or his eagerness to prove that he is a man and a sexual being come from a place of being denied those things as a disabled person. Tyrion’s feelings on religion seem to run on a spectrum from atheism to agnosticism to believing that there is a god or gods that personally hate him.

One interesting facet of this is the way that the gods in the religion of the seven are divided into different aspects, and this provides interesting analysis for several characters if we pay attention to how the characters relate to these different aspects. Tyrion is one such example. If we align the seven aspects to the people in Tyrion’s life, we get:

The Father = Tywin Lannister

The Father's face is stern and strong, he sits and judges right from wrong. He weighs our lives, the short and long,

This definitely describes Tywin as a presence in Tyrion’s life. Tywin is an extreme example of the stern, judgmental authority figure, and this figure in Tyrion’s life is entirely negative. Tyrion often compares Tywin to the Father, particularly in ADWD after Tyrion kills Tywin and Tywin becomes an almost god-like presence in Tyrion’s mind.

The Mother = Joanna

The Mother gives the gift of life, and watches over every wife. Her gentle smile ends all strife,

Joanna gave the gift of life to Tyrion, an act for which Tyrion was blamed because it resulted in her death. The death/life dichotomy is something that follows Tyrion wherever he goes. Which is part of the reason why Tyrion identifies himself as the Stranger, the personification of death. More on that later. I also think it’s interesting that the Mother is associated with watching over wives, since the other lost woman in Tyrion’s life is his first wife, Tysha, whom he could not protect, just as he had no control over the loss of his mother. And of course, Tyrion probably would have as a child fantasized about what his life would have been like if he had had a mother who would “end all strife” and smile at him gently.

The Warrior = Jaime

The Warrior stands before the foe, protecting us where e'er we go. With sword and shield and spear and bow,

Tyrion frequently thinks about Jaime as a warrior. Usually in the context of comparing himself unfavorably to his brother and envying Jaime’s martial prowess, but he also thinks of his brother as his protector, as when he says in AGOT and ADWD that Jaime was the only one in his life who took care of him when he was child, so therefore he trusts Jaime implicitly, or at least, did until ADWD. One of the interesting dichotomies about the Warrior is that he is both the protector and specifically the one prayed to when one asks for protection for warriors, as Jaime does in ACOK before the battle, praying for Jaime and himself.

The Maiden =

The Maiden dances through the sky, she lives in every lover's sigh. Her smiles teach the birds to fly, and gives dreams to little children.

The Maiden is the idealization of the female as a romantic/sexual interest. She is provocative, yet sweet and innocent. There are a lot of characters who represent this for Tyrion: Tysha, Sansa, Penny. Although the maiden is largely a positive figure, this also has negative connotations for Tyrion because it reminds him of what he has lost and what he believes he cannot have, as a disabled person.

I don’t really have any mapping for the Smith or the Crone. As I said before, Tyrion is definitely the Stranger, though. There’s no stanza in the song for the Stranger, which I think is kind of disappointing because he could have easily been fit in there. Something like the Stranger hides his face in shadow, he watches us where’er we go, and gently calls when it’s time to go, to guide us to our final home. Is that too macabre?

The Stranger only appears once in Tyrion’s narrative, but it’s pretty significant, and appears after Tyrion lights a candle to the Warrior for Jaime before the Blackwater Battle:

At the Warrior's altar, he used one candle to light another. Watch over my brother, you bloody bastard, he's one of yours. He lit a second candle to the Stranger, for himself.

This tells us a lot about how Tyrion sees himself. I’m gonna also quote from the wiki of ice and fire entry about the Stranger:

The Stranger is one of the seven aspects of a single deity. Believers of the Faith of the Seven consider their god to be one with seven aspects, as the sept is a single building, with seven walls. The Stranger is an exception in that he is viewed in a negative light, with worshippers rarely praying to him.

The Stranger represents death and the unknown, and leads the dead to the other world. Whilst referred to as male, he is neither male nor female. The Stranger's face has been described as half-human, concealed beneath a hooded mantle. The wooden statue of the Stranger burnt on Dragonstone is carved to look more animal than human.

Worshippers rarely seek favor from the Stranger, but outcasts sometimes associate themselves with this aspect of god.

I’ve talked about how the other aspects above have negative connotations for Tyrion because of the societal ableism and abuse he has experienced. The Stranger is largely a negative entity who is rarely prayed to, although the wiki does note that sometimes outcasts pray to him, as Tyrion does. Note that the books also mention that people pray to the Stranger when they are close to death, and Tyrion could have been thinking about this as he prepares for Stannis’ attack on King’s Landing, in which he very well could die (and almost does). But I also think that Tyrion feels a kinship to the Stranger as someone who has spent his life as an outcast, and I think that is shown in the way that the text contrasts Tyrion lighting a candle for himself and the candle he lights for Jaime, saying to the Warrior that Jaime is “one of yours.” This implies that Tyrion thinks that he belongs to the Stranger.

On one level, Tyrion has always had an association with death because he was supposed to have died soon after his birth, plus the fact that his birth caused his mother’s death. Often the existence of disabled people is treated as unnatural by able-bodied people because they are seen as being “close to death.” But some of the other characteristics of the Stranger fit Tyrion as well. The Stranger represents outcasts because he is related to the unknown, as mentioned above. In that sense he comes across as a fearful yet misunderstood figure. I also think it is interesting that the wiki notes that the Stranger is “neither male nor female,” and I’ve talked before about how one of the rumors about Tyrion, that he was born with both male and female genitalia, places him as a liminal figure and is used to emphasize his otherness in the eyes of others because of his disability. Tyrion is a liminal character who often is associated with halves and dichotomies, and so too the Stranger. He’s described as having a face that is “half-human.” Of course, Tyrion is known as a “half-man” and also has certain unique qualities about his facial features which are sometimes used to other him. His heterochromia is another instance of half/duality that make him something of a pariah. After the Blackwater Battle he loses “half his nose.” The “more animal than human” aspect also fits other people’s ableist perceptions of Tyrion, such as when Oberyn tells Tyrion that he was rumored to have animal-like features like claws and a tail, and Cersei’s dream in which Tyrion is covered in hair and behaving in a very animalistic way, or when multiple characters compare him to a monkey.

So while most of the time Tyrion seems to scoff at religion, when he does pray, I think he feels like the Stranger is the safest aspect to pray to when it comes to himself.

In ADWD we learn an interesting thing about Tyrion’s childhood that informs his stance on religion:

"The Father reached his hand into the heavens and pulled down seven stars," Tyrion recited from memory, "and one by one he set them on the brow of Hugor of the Hill to make a glowing crown."

Magister Illyrio gave him a curious look. "I did not dream my little friend was so devout."

“I knew I would not make a knight, so I decided to be High Septon. That crystal crown adds a foot to a man's height. I studied the holy books and prayed until I had scabs on both my knees, but my quest came to a tragic end. I reached that certain age and fell in love.”

I rarely see Tyrion’s thoughts about religion talked about in the context of him wanting to be high septon when he was a child. Usually I see people assume that Tyrion was purely motivated by the power it would give him. I think that’s a valid argument because it’s notable that Tyrion didn’t just want to be A septon, but hold the highest position in that category, since he could not excel in other areas where he could earn a high position and title. He also gives as his motivation that the “crown adds a foot to a man’s height” with his characteristic glib self-deprecation, but I do think there is more to it than that. I think that it’s interesting that he notes that what stops him from this career path is falling in love, and he of course is talking about his chance meeting with Tysha, which led to his marriage to her. I think part of the reason Tyrion decided on being high septon before that was a resignation to the idea that no one was going to love or want to be intimate with him. Both in the books and the show he describes himself as shy when he spends that first night with Tysha. There’s been tons of meta (many written by me) on the whole Tysha episode and what effect that had on Tyrion’s ability to see himself as worthy of love, but I think the idea that physical intimacy and romance were something out of reach for him existed long before Tysha. I’ve talked plenty of times about how Tyrion’s models for love before that were Tywin grieving for his wife (and blaming Tyrion on her death) and Jaime and Cersei’s highly narcissistic affair which would have emphasized to Tyrion how alone he was. I don’t think Tyrion ever saw himself in a romantic relationship before Tysha. After Tysha, he’s been both married and subjected to a huge amount of sexual trauma at a young age, so of course he can’t go back to a life of celibacy and prayer, and I think what happens with Tysha would be enough to shake anybody’s faith and turn them to cynicism.

Tyrion also relates to the gods in the ways that many characters do, asking the question if there are gods, why do they let bad things happen? This is usually tinged with Tyrion’s specific form of self-deprecation and internalized ableism, such as when he says that the gods “must have been drunk when they got to me.” It’s not really surprising that he thinks this, considering that, if we look back at the seven aspects above and how they appear in Tyrion’s life, the primary figures that are supposed to provide guidance and love are largely absent or abusive.

I’ve largely talked about the Seven because that’s what Tyrion was raised with and is familiar with, but he also has interactions with the Old Gods. It doesn’t crop up as much and doesn’t feature in his narrative the way the Seven does, of course, but he does have a similar feeling of trepidation towards the Old Gods.

He remembered their godswood; the tall sentinels armored in their grey-green needles, the great oaks, the hawthorn and ash and soldier pines, and at the center the heart tree standing like some pale giant frozen in time. He could almost smell the place, earthy and brooding, the smell of centuries, and he remembered how dark the wood had been even by day. That wood was Winterfell. It was the north. I never felt so out of place as I did when I walked there, so much an unwelcome intruder.

Tyrion’s reaction is not unlike the way several non-Stark characters react to the religion of the Old Gods, however it’s also not that different to the way he relates to the Seven, where he also sees himself as an outcast, only able to pray to the aspect of god that exists on the outskirts.

Tyrion takes a sort of reassurance in his aversion to religion because his association with it is so negative.

The old gods paid no more heed to prayer than the new ones, it would seem. Perhaps he should take comfort in that.

Tyrion is similarly dismissive of the Lord of Light, particularly with the insistence that he is a savior figure.

They chanted in the tongue of Old Volantis, but Tyrion had heard the prayers enough to grasp the essence. Light our fire and protect us from the dark, blah blah, light our way and keep us toasty warm, the night is dark and full of terrors, save us from the scary things, and blah blah blah some more.

He knew better than to voice such thoughts aloud. Tyrion Lannister had no use for any god, but on this ship it was wise to show a certain respect for red R'hllor.

It’s not surprising that someone who has been mistreated and subject to abuse and institutional discrimination would feel dismissive of the idea of divine protection. At the same time, sometimes people who have been marginalized go the other way and seek refuge in religion, and we see this in several characters in asoiaf as well. Tyrion’s journey to join forces with Dany has something of that flavor, as Dany is presented as an almost messianic figure herself and savior of the oppressed. I do think that, for all his cynicism, Tyrion does still have some hope in faith. Tyrion’s beleif in religion is sort of like his belief in magic, he makes several cynical remarks and mostly treats it as nonsense, but when it comes down to it he does still have that spark of wonder from his childhood. In ADWD he’s frequently haunted by the figure of the Father, but he’s also on his way to meet Dany, a mystic Mother figure. She’s also got dragons, another thing that represents Tyrion’s faith/belief in things that he can’t see, things that offer freedom and hope for people like him, but also things that caused him a great deal of pain in the past, especially in childhood, when they were used by others to crush him.

Tyrion’s feelings towards the divine are complex and have a lot to do with his disability, so, like most things with Tyrion, it’s pretty reductive and invalidating to claim that it’s the same thing as dudebro pseudo-intellectual sneering of the particularly annoying and entitled kind. I know what y’all mean but in general, someone’s faith or lack of faith is a pretty personal and individualized experience, so trying to make a judgment in order to invalidate someone’s theism or atheism is probably a bad idea anyway, but it’s especially bad for considering people in an intersectional way.

#tyrion lannister #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #the faith of the seven

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agentrouka-blog · 4 years ago

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Hi! When Sansa got her first period she burn the beddings implicating fire n blood. Do you think she will loose her maidenhood to Jon or does it signifies another thing? She has fire n blood imaginary in her chapters.

While I agree in principle that Sansa has more than a few hints that her eventual partner will be a certain trueborn Targaryen (”the dragon’s heir”, Sandor’s cloak stained with fire and blood,...), there is little reason to assume that Jon will come to openly embrace his Targaryen ancestry and actually wrap Sansa in a Targaryen cloak. The cloak remains hidden at the bottom of Sansa’s chest, after all. He is a hidden prince, but he’s the biggest Stark stan of them all and his foreshadowing leans toward remaining an official bastard, if not becoming a Stark outright. So these images already tell us that his true parentage will be steeped in conflict.

And while it’s very likely that Jon will be Sansa’s first (and probably only) Lover, I actually think that the specific scene you are talking about is not a hint about that.

(Other things surrounding that scene, though.. I go into much detail further down.)

The scene of Sansa’s first moonblood in ACOK actually mirrors the scene of Dany’s miscarriage in ADWD. It’s all steeped in panic, violence and horror. Not happy imagery for sex.

Women swarmed over her like weasels, pinching her legs and kicking her in the belly, and someone hit her in the face and she felt her teeth shatter. Then she saw the bright glimmer of steel. The knife plunged into her belly and tore and tore and tore, until there was nothing left of her down there but shiny wet ribbons. When she woke, the pale light of morning was slanting through her window, yet she felt as sick and achy as if she had not slept at all. There was something sticky on her thighs. When she threw back the blanket and saw the blood, all she could think was that her dream had somehow come true. She remembered the knives inside her, twisting and ripping. She squirmed away in horror, kicking at the sheets and falling to the floor, breathing raggedly, naked, bloodied, and afraid. But as she crouched there, on her hands and knees, understanding came. “No, please,” Sansa whimpered, “please, no.” She didn’t want this happening to her, not now, not here, not now, not now, not now, not now. Madness took hold of her. Pulling herself up by the bedpost, she went to the basin and washed between her legs, scrubbing away all the stickiness. By the time she was done, the water was pink with blood. When her maidservants saw it they would know. Then she remembered the bedclothes. She rushed back to the bed and stared in horror at the dark red stain and the tale it told. All she could think was that she had to get rid of it, or else they’d see. She couldn’t let them see, or they’d marry her to Joffrey and make her lay with him. Snatching up her knife, Sansa hacked at the sheet, cutting out the stain. If they ask me about the hole, what will I say? Tears ran down her face. She pulled the torn sheet from the bed, and the stained blanket as well. I’ll have to burn them. She balled up the evidence, stuffed it in the fireplace, drenched it in oil from her bedside lamp, and lit it afire. Then she realized that the blood had soaked through the sheet into the featherbed, so she bundled that up as well, but it was big and cumbersome, hard to move. Sansa could get only half of it into the fire. She was on her knees, struggling to shove the mattress into the flames as thick grey smoke eddied around her and filled the room, when the door burst open and she heard her maid gasp. In the end it took three of them to pull her away. And it was all for nothing. The bedclothes were burnt, but by the time they carried her off her thighs were bloody again. It was as if her own body had betrayed her to Joffrey, unfurling a banner of Lannister crimson for all the world to see. (ACOK, Sansa VI)

I mean… “Madness took a hold of her.” And then she gets fire happy. The fire and blood in this scene harkens more of Dany, more of rape, miscarriage, still-birth and death than of anything life-affirming or positive.

But, to get positive:

There is plenty of Jonsa to be had, though, in the chapter transitions.

THEON IV -> JON VI -> SANSA IV -> JON VII -> TYRION XII

Jon’s chapter embrace Sansa’s, while he himself is flanked by two of his foils.

Theon IV has this:

Mercy, thought Theon as Luwin dropped back. There’s a bloody trap. Too much and they call you weak, too little and you’re monstrous. Yet the maester had given him good counsel, he knew. His father thought only in terms of conquest, but what good was it to take a kingdom if you could not hold it? Force and fear could carry you only so far. A pity Ned Stark had taken his daughters south; elsewise Theon could have tightened his grip on Winterfell by marrying one of them. Sansa was a pretty little thing too, and by now likely even ripe for bedding. But she was a thousand leagues away, in the clutches of the Lannisters. A shame.

End of chapter:

“Prince Theon,” Maester Luwin entreated, “you will remember your promise? Mercy, you said.” “Mercy was for this morning,” said Theon. It is better to be feared than laughed at. “Before they made me angry.”

A prince of mercy, linked to marrying Sansa and ruling Winterfell, Gotcha. Next up? Jon.

Jon VI chapter opening:

They could see the fire in the night, glimmering against the side of the mountain like a fallen star. It burned redder than the other stars, and did not twinkle, though sometimes it flared up bright and sometimes dwindled down to no more than a distant spark, dull and faint. Half a mile ahead and two thousand feet up, Jon judged, and perfectly placed to see anything moving in the pass below.

You’d think this was referring to Ygritte, who is “kissed by fire” and will later be eulogized as “Well, the hottest fires burn out quickest." But. There are a ton of Sansa-in-the-Eyrie references.

A red fire in the mountains, sometimes bright, sometimes dull, but never twinkling, very high up…

The wash her aunt had given her changed her own rich auburn into Alayne's burnt brown, but it was seldom long before the red began creeping back at the roots. (AFFC, Alayne I)

The chapter then has Jon climbing up in the mountains with Stonesnake in a way that mirror’s Sansa climbing down the cliffside in her escape from King’s Landing in ASOS, and later her descent from the Eyrie in AFFC. Jon later also climbs the Wall up, while Sansa is only ever described in detail climbing down. These two are destined to meet in the middle at some point.

This is also the chapter where he meets Ygritte (*spits*) who is the hot and dangerous kind of fire. But:

“Fire is life up here,” said Qhorin Halfhand, “but it can be death as well.”

There is more than one kind of fire.

I cannot quote everything here, but the language is just incredibly similar to the Eyrie descriptions.

There were wonders here as well. He had seen sunlight flashing on icy thin waterfalls as they plunged over the lips of sheer stone cliffs, and a mountain meadow full of autumn wildflowers, blue coldsnaps and bright scarlet frostfires and stands of piper’s grass in russet and gold. He had peered down ravines so deep and black they seemed certain to end in some hell, and he had ridden his garron over a wind-eaten bridge of natural stone with nothing but sky to either side. Eagles nested in the heights and came down to hunt the valleys, circling effortlessly on great blue-grey wings that seemed almost part of the sky.

The waterfall screams Alyssa’s Tears while the natural stone bridge references that little stone saddle bridge that is crossed by Catelyn on her way up and by Sansa on her way down. Where she hears the ghost wolf big as mountains.

But back to transitions, end of chapter:

“Do it,” she urged him after a moment. “Bastard. Do it. I can’t stay brave forever.” When the blow did not fall she turned her head to look at him. Jon lowered his sword. “Go,” he muttered. Ygritte stared. “Now,” he said, “before my wits return. Go.” She went.

What does our prince do? Show mercy. Which, of course, does indeed entrap him with the wrong partner.

Followed by Sansa IV:

This chapter is choked with horrible abusive imagery for Sansa.

The southern sky was black with smoke. It rose swirling off a hundred distant fires, its sooty fingers smudging out the stars. Across the Blackwater Rush, a line of flame burned nightly from horizon to horizon, while on this side the Imp had fired the whole riverfront: docks and warehouses, homes and brothels, everything outside the city walls.

Even in the Red Keep, the air tasted of ashes. When Sansa found Ser Dontos in the quiet of the godswood, he asked if she’d been crying. “It’s only from the smoke,” she lied. “It looks as though half the kingswood is burning.”

While more destructive fires burn, Sansa is surrounded by false partners, false heroes: Tyrion, Dontos, Littlefinger, the Hound. The smoke hides the stars.

More references to mercy:

The last time King’s Landing had fallen, the Lannisters looted and raped as they pleased and put hundreds to the sword, even though the city had opened its gates. This time the Imp meant to fight, and a city that fought could expect no mercy at all.

That red fire high up and perfectly placed to see anything below?

Turning back to the stair, Sansa climbed. The smoke blotted out the stars and the thin crescent of moon, so the roof was dark and thick with shadows. Yet from here she could see everything: the Red Keep’s tall towers and great cornerforts, the maze of city Streets beyond, to south and west the river running black, the bay to the east, the columns of smoke and cinders, and fires, fires everywhere.

Isn’t this beautifully done??

Sansa encounters the Hound, they discuss the joys (and lack thereof) of killing. (Hint: big contrast to merciful Jon.)

It’s follow by Sansa’s moonblood nightmare night/morning and her panic attack arson reaction.

This is followed by her breakfast with Cersei where they discuss flowering, childbirth, Robert v. Jaime, Joffrey and love. Emphasis is put on how her brother (ahem, lover, father of her children) showed her devotion in connection to childbirth. Jaime is Cersei’s love. While she denounces the subject to Sansa, she certainly values it for herself.

End of chapter:

Robert wanted to be loved. My brother Tyrion has the same disease. Do you want to be loved, Sansa?” “Everyone wants to be loved.” “I see flowering hasn’t made you any brighter,” said Cersei. “Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.”

Followed by: Jon VII.

(Gotcha, someone heard Sansa wants to be loved, and went me me me, I can be your sweet poison, baby.)

Opening:

It was dark in the Skirling Pass. The great stone flanks of the mountains hid the sun for most of the day, so they rode in shadow, the breath of man and horse steaming in the cold air. Icy fingers of water trickled down from the snowpack above into small frozen pools that cracked and broke beneath the hooves of their garrons. Sometimes they would see a few weeds struggling from some crack in the rock or a splotch of pale lichen, but there was no grass, and they were above the trees now.

More language that straight-up mirrors the Eyrie chapters. Sansa can’t see the stars, Jon can’t see the sun, hidden int he mountains.

More discussions of mercy.

“If I had needed her dead, I would have left her with Ebben, or done the thing myself.” “Then why did you command it of me?” “I did not command it. I told you to do what needed to be done, and left you to decide what that would be.” Qhorin stood and slid his longsword back into its scabbard. “When I want a mountain scaled, I call on Stonesnake. Should I need to put an arrow through the eye of some foe across a windy battlefield, I summon Squire Dalbridge. Ebben can make any man give up his secrets. To lead men you must know them, Jon Snow. I know more of you now than I did this morning.” “And if I had slain her?” asked Jon. “She would be dead, and I would know you better than I had before.”

We see who they are by what they do.

In later chapters: Sansa sings for mercy even for her enemies, treats her enemies (bit for the very worst ones) with compassion and kindness. In ASOS, Ygritte murders an unarmed old man they come upon almost exactly the way Jon came upon her. We’ll just let those two things speak for themselves.

Jon goes wargy and has a Nightmare of a false partner and a panicky reaction of his own:

As he lifted his eyes to the ice-white mountain heights above, a shadow plummeted out of the sky. A shrill scream split the air. He glimpsed blue-grey pinions spread wide, shutting out the sun . . . “Ghost!” Jon shouted, sitting up. He could still feel the talons, the pain. “Ghost, to me!” Ebben appeared, grabbed him, shook him. “Quiet! You mean to bring the Wildlings down on us? What’s wrong with you, boy?” “A dream,” said Jon feebly. “I was Ghost, I was on the edge of the mountain Looking down on a frozen river, and something attacked me. A bird . . . an eagle, I think . . .” Squire Dalbridge smiled. “It’s always pretty women in my dreams. Would that I dreamed more often.”

Shadows in the sky? Drogon. Dany. Scary.

They are stalked by the Wildlings, the warg eagle, they cannot escape. Just as Sansa will not be able to escape. The trap Jon laid for himself when he spared Ygritte is slowly moving shut. Mercy, that two-edged sword.

End of chapter:

When dawn broke, Jon looked up into a cloudless sky and saw a speck moving through the blue. Ebben saw it too, and cursed, but Qhorin told him to be quiet. “Listen.” Jon held his breath, and heard it. Far away and behind them, the call of a hunting horn echoed against the mountains. “And now they come,” said Qhorin.

Bad things are coming.

Who’s coming? Tyrion XII.

Tyrion is coming, he won’t know it for a while, but he is coming for Sansa, like Ygritte is coming for Jon.

Chapter opening:

Pod dressed him for his ordeal in a plush velvet tunic of Lannister crimson and brought him his chain of office. Tyrion left it on the bedside table. His sister misliked being reminded that he was the King’s Hand, and he did not wish to inflame the relations between them any further.

Tyrion is dreading his own oncoming encounter with Cersei. We learn that Theon’s lack of mercy has become public: Bran and Rickon are reported dead. This endangers Jaime.

“I still hold Sansa!” the queen declared. “We still hold Sansa,” he corrected her, “and we had best take good care of her.”

Tyrions wants them to take good care of her. Ygritte promised Jon could join the Wildlings if he wanted to switch sides. Mercy? In reality, they are pressured into marriage or sex. In ASOS, this happens to Jon and Sansa, respectively.

More on false lovers: Cersei threatens Tyrion’s partner - but the false partner! She threatens Alayaya, the whore he pretended to see, when he was really going to see Shae.

Her hands were bound with rope, and they’d gagged her so she could not speak. “You said she wouldn’t be hurt.” “She fought.”

No mercy for cities that fight back, as Sansa speculated earlier.

“Sweetling,” he said, “you must be brave. I am sorry they hurt you.” “I know you’ll free me, my lord.” “I will,” he promised, and Alayaya bent over and kissed him on the brow.

Theon promised mercy, and lied.

Sansa is promised escape, it is a lie.

Alayaya is promised rescue - it is a lie. She will be whipped and shoved through the gates naked when Cersei releases her.

He visits Shae:

“The Lady Lollys—” “She’s asleep. Sleep’s all she ever wants to do, the great cow. She sleeps and she eats. Sometimes she falls asleep while she’s eating. The food falls under the blankets and she rolls in it, and I have to clean her.” She made a disgusted face. “All they did was fuck her.” “Her mother says she’s sick.” “She has a baby in her belly, that’s all.”

No sympathy for a rape victim, much like Ygritte doesn’t comprehend the concept. But the theme of sexual violence and pregnancy continues.

Who will show Lollys kindness later? Sansa.

We see how rare mercy and compassion actually are. How rare and precious.

End of chapter:

When she felt him go soft, Shae slid down under the sheets and took him in her mouth, but even that could not rouse him. After a few moments he stopped her. “What’s wrong?” she asked. All the sweet innocence of the world was written there in the lines of her young face.

Innocence? Fool, she’s a whore, Cersei was right, you think with your cock, fool, fool.

“Just go to sleep, sweetling,” he urged, stroking her hair. Yet long after Shae had taken his advice, Tyrion himself still lay awake, his fingers cupped over one small breast as he listened to her breathing.

The imagery here is reminiscent of Jon and Ygritte in ASOS, Jon V:

They shared the same sleeping skins every night, and he went to sleep with her head against his chest and her red hair tickling his chin. The smell of her had become a part of him. Her crooked teeth, the feel of her breast when he cupped it in his hand, the taste of her mouth . . . they were his joy and his despair.

Fake love, wrong partners. What Tyrion wants is what he thought he had with Tysha. Something innocent and true. What he has is false. Much like Jon will eventually realize with Ygritte: who she is and what he has is very different from what he thinks it is, what he actually wants: something innocent, something true. As rare and precious as mercy.

Sansa, our resident prophetic genius is right: Everyone wants to be loved.

The fact that Jon’s chapters are basically hugging Sansa’s flowering and shielding her from the two pervs who want to do all the things she is narrowly escaping and having nightmares about is sort of.. important. THAT is a hint that he will protect her from such a fate, that he will take the things he learns from Ygritte and put them to a worthier use, when he and Sansa both end up meeting in the middle.

#jonsa #sansa stark #jon snow #tyrion lannister #theon greyjoy #asoiaf

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misshoneywheeler · 4 years ago

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Tagged by the effervescent @zip001 for a fic title meme. List your last 20 fic titles & answer the questions below. I’m also including where the title came from for each one, if applicable.Tagging anyone who wants to play, this is a neat one!

There and Back Again - Rhaenys Targaryen/Aegon VI Targaryen/Jon Snow, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : from the subtitle of The Hobbit

Atropos (part of Once Upon a Time) - Roslin Frey, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : the name of the Greek Moirai (the Fates) responsible for cutting the thread of life

The Slow Heart - Female Morphling & Peeta Mellark, The Hunger Games : from A Birthday by W.S. Merwin

Between Two Worlds (part of Come and Save My Life) - Layla Williams/Warren Peace, Sky High

Polytropos - Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Daario Naharis/Daenerys Targaryen, Daenerys Targaryen/Jorah Mormont, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : the first adjective used by Homer to describe Odysseus in the Odyssey, translated in many different ways over the years but literally meaning “many turns”

Sweeter at the Marrow - Septa Lemore/Young Griff, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones

Kingmaker - Arianne Martell/Robb Stark, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones

The Great Other - Nissa Nissa, Meera Reed, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : the enemy of R’hllor, the Lord of Light, in ASoIaF

Not For Ourselves Alone Are We Born - Jon Snow/Satin, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : from Cicero’s On Duties, an English translation of the beginning of the sentence “Non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici / Not for ourselves alone are we born; our country, our friends, have a share in us”

Cut The World In Two - Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : from Tired by Langston Hughes

Impossible Not To Want - Daenerys Targaryen/Rhaenys Targaryen, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : from I Don’t Miss It by Tracy K. Smith

The Heart Asks Pleasure First - Brienne of Tarth/Jaime Lannister, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : the title of a composition by Michael Nyman

A Soft Place to Fall - Sansa Stark/Tyrion Lannister, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : from the song by Allison Moorer

Other Joys - Sansa Stark/Theon Greyjoy, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : from Love Poem by Denise Levertov

Holdfast - Lyanna Mormont, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones

The Door to Your Room Was the Door to Mine - Arya Stark/Gendry Baratheon (née Waters), A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : from I Remember by Anne Sexton

Everything That Sings and Sounds (And Sighs In Its Turn) - Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : from an English translation of The Doll Song in the Tales of Hoffman by Offenbach

Some Other Beginning’s End - Darrow au Andromedus/Victra au Julii, Red Rising Series : from the quote “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end” by the Roman philosopher Seneca, and/or the band Semisonic

And I’d Send You a Letter From There - Brian Krakow/Angela Chase, My So-Called Life : the closing line of the letter Brian ghostwrote for Jordan Catalano to give to Angela in MSCL

Crown Your Hatred - Barbrey Dustin/Robb Stark, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones : from the Pierre Corneille quote "To take revenge halfheartedly is to court disaster; either condemn or crown your hatred."

1. How many are you happy with?

I would say most of them? There are only a few where I’m like “Wait, why did I name it that again...?”

2. How many are… not great?

Eh. A few.

3. How many did you scramble for at the last minute?

Lol is there any other way to title fics?

4. How many did you know before you started writing/creating, or near the beginning?

Zero. Does anyone say otherwise? Who knows the title at the START? Where are all these disciplined, far-sighted fic writers, because I don’t think I know any.

5. How many are quotes from songs or poems?

Nine

6. How many are other quotes?

Five

7. Which best reflects the plot of the story/content of the fanwork?

Probably Some Other Beginning’s End, which is a what-if future fic imagining a scenario where Darrow and Victra have both lost their partners, leading them to turn to each other.

8. Which best reflects the theme of the story/fanwork?

I think Not For Ourselves Alone Are We Born, since the fic deals with Jon post resurrection and the ways he’s lived a life of duty, and given of himself and sacrificed for others, and the way Satin, having been born into prostitution and literally provided his body in service to the desires of others, would feel a kinship with that.

9. Which best reflects the character voice of the story/POV of the fanwork?

Crown Your Hatred.

10. Which is your favorite?

I particularly like Atropos, and the alignment with all of the Fates, given that Roslin didn’t spin the thread/hatch the plot (Clothos) or measure the thread/set the trap (Lachesis), but she’s the mechanism by which the thread is cut/the Red Wedding happens (Atropos).

#honey wheeler meme #honey wheeler fic #long post

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lo-lynx · 5 years ago

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Masculine embodiment in ASOIAF- aka, what’s up with the eunuchs?

CW: Sexism, cissexism, rape, sex, description of genitalia and bodily functions.

Spoilers: All of A Song of Ice and Fire, and a tiny spoiler from Game of Thrones season 8.

“’I hold the man’s balls in the palm of my hand.’ He cupped his fingers, smiling. ‘Or would, if he were a man, or had any balls.’” (Martin 1996/2011, 194) Ah, classic Littlefinger burn about Varys. In George RR Martin’s world of ASOIAF such jokes are frequent, but when last time when I re-read A Game of Thrones this one joke in Ned’s fourth chapter stuck out. Perhaps it was because I had recently watched the last season of Game of Thrones where Varys comments on Tyrion’s ever-present jokes about Varys being a eunuch (Game of Thrones 2019, 04:27). Perhaps it’s because issues of gender and sexuality interest me in general (see: all of this blog). Regardless, it got me interested at seeing how eunuchs are described in the books. I soon found that the connection between a man’s genitals and masculinity seemed to be very strong. Now, before I go any further, I feel like two disclaimers are in order. 1: I’m not saying that having a penis is necessary to be a man, I’m saying that both our society and the world of ASOIAF seems to think so. 2: I’m not saying that GRRM thinks this either, I have no idea what his personal stance on these things are, but I’m saying that he seems to have transferred these views from our world into his world. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, why focus on this aspect of masculine embodiment in ASOIAF? Well, as I intend to show in this analysis, by analysing how eunuchs are portrayed in the books, I think one can infer quite a bit of how men and masculinity is conceived of in Westeros and beyond. So, firstly I want to give a brief overview of how sex/gender was conceived of in our medieval world (mostly to show how this DOES NOT seem to match ASOIAF), and secondly how these things are conceived of in more modern times and compare this to ASOIAF.

So, before the 18th century or so, European conception sex/gender relied on what has afterwards been called a “one-sex model” (Mottier 2008, 33). This model was very influenced by the Greek philosophical idea that men’s bodies were active, hot and strong; women’s bodies being passive, weak, damp and cold (ibid, 5).

As the historian Thomas Laqueur has pointed out, the classical model of gender involved a ‘one-sex model’: since gender was fluid, men risked becoming more feminized if they lost heat, while women could become more like men if their bodies heated up. The psychological consequences of such beliefs was [sic] that gender did not appear as a stable, biological characteristic, but as an identity that was potentially under threat. (Mottier 2008, 6)

That is to say, during this time sex/gender was seen as fluid, and not a biological fact. As mentioned, this view didn’t really change until the 18th century. Mottier describes that shift like this:

From the 18th century, the traditional idea of the ‘one-sex’ body, which conceptualized women’s bodies as similar but inferior versions of male bodies (with female genitals being thought of as internal, much smaller versions of male genitals) started to be replaced with the idea of a clear biological differentiation between men and women. Male and female bodies came to be seen as fundamentally, biological different, not as part of the same hierarchical continuum. The gender hierarchy remained, however. (Mottier 2008, 33)

From this we can infer then, that during the medieval period in Europe, female bodies were perceived as sort of defect versions of male bodies, not fundamentally biologically different. It was after this model was replaced with the ‘two-sex model’ that men and women were seen as biologically different creatures. This biological difference also began being used as a justification for social difference (and inequality) between men and women. That is not to say that such social difference didn’t exist before that, but it wasn’t though to be the result of biological differences in the same way. In my view, this later conceptualisation of sex/gender is much more in line with how sex/gender seems to be perceived in ASOIAF. Throughout the books there are several references of women being of the gentle/weaker sex, or similar descriptions. One such is in Catelyn’s last chapter in A Game of Thrones when Catelyn tries to persuade Robb’s lords to sue for peace with the Lannisters. The Greatjon then says that because she is a woman she does not understand such things, while Lord Karstark says: “You are the gentle sex (…) a man has a need for vengeance.” (Martin 2011, 770) Such a view, seeing the female sex as gentler/weaker than the male sex, seems much more in line with a “two-sex model” than the “one-sex model” that would’ve existed in Medieval Europe. I shall therefore proceed to explain the male body has been conceived in more modern times.

In general, one can say that the male subject is expected to embody strength, toughness, and have a capability to exercise power over a space (Whitehead 2002, 189). This expectation also carries through to expectations of men’s sexuality, which is why many aging men might start to lose confidence in their sexuality when they can’t live up to this expectation (ibid, 200). This connection between masculinity and strength, virility etc. also impacts the importance being put on having “normal” genitalia. As Fausto-Sterling writes about the male body, from a medical point of view, the existence of a “functional” penis is often considered crucial for manhood (1995, 130). This is taken to the extreme that children born with a penis that is considered too small (even though the size of the penis at birth doesn’t seem to be a good indicator of adult size) will have their genitalia surgically changed into a vagina (for more on surgery on intersex children see for example: Amnesty 2017). Presumably this is partly because the sexual act of penetration is so closely linked to masculinity, that having a penis that is considered “too small” for this is inconceivable (as someone who works with sex education, I just want to add SIZE DOESN’T MATTER THAT MUCH. Just communicate with your partner and figure out what works for you!) Other studies have also analysed the way testicles are perceived in modern society and found that those seem to be closely connected to masculinity as well (Karioris & Allan 2017). The most obvious example of this is of course the phrase “grow a pair”, said when wanting someone to toughen up. Kaioris and Allan also write that fear of castration is often linked with a fear of losing one’s masculinity. This is all to say, that in our society genitalia seems to be very important to manhood and being “a real man”. Now, is this also the case in ASOIAF?

Short answer, yes. One example is of course the quote with which I started this text, when Littlefinger seems to equate Varys’ lack of testicles with his lack of manhood. Another example comes from A Clash of Kings when Tyrion expresses a similar sentiment when comparing himself to Varys: “Yet I’m still a man.” (Martin 1999/2011, 120). But the linking of lack of genitals with lack of masculinity doesn’t stop with Varys, it is also something we see with Theon after his torture by Ramsey. He himself thinks that he is no man (Martin 2011/2012, 566). Later, when Ramsey forces him to be a part of raping Jeyne Poole, he jokes about Theon (not) getting an erection by seeing Jeyne, and then says that Theon is: “Not even a man, in truth.” (Martin 2011d, 582). This equating of (lack of) a penis and testicles with (a lack of) masculinity/manhood isn’t contained to Westeros, however. Daenerys thinks a similar thing when describing the unsullied in A Storm of Swords: “(…) they were no men at all. The Unsullied were eunuchs, every one of them.” (Martin 2000/2011, 314). Speaking of Daenerys, in A Game of Thrones we learn from her chapters that in Dothraki culture, the only ones who ride in carts are those with a disability, women giving birth, the very old and the very old. Oh, and eunuchs (Martin 1996/2011, 373). Here it becomes very clear that eunuchs are seen as weak and unmanly when they are grouped together with pregnant women, old people and those with disabilities. How disability is portrayed in ASOIAF is not something I will go into further here, but I recommend the text “Power and Punishment in Game of Thrones” by Mia Harrison that does explore that. However, it seems clear that those with disabilities are not seen as “real men” either.

So, based on this, we can see that the Westerosi (and Essosi) view of what a man is seems to presume that he is strong, active and virile. It is apparently also very important to have functioning genitalia (whatever that even means). Therefore, those who cannot live up to that, such as eunuchs, are not real men. This is a very narrow definition of masculinity and manhood, yet it unfortunately rings true in our world as well. Not only does it exclude trans folx completely, it also limits people of all genders. We see the consequences of that in ASOIAF when Brianne is excluded from knighthood based on her gender, and in the way people of Westeros treat all of its “imperfect” men. And we can most definitely see it in our own world.

References

Amnesty International. (2017). “First, do no harm: ensuring the rights of children born intersex.” Accessed 1 December, 2019. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/05/intersex-rights/

Game of Thrones. (2019) Winterfell. [TV-show]

Harrison, Mia. (2018). “Power and Punishment in Game of Thrones”, pp. 28-43 in Schatz, J L & Amber E George (Eds.), The Image of Disability: Essays on Media Representations. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Fausto-Sterling, Anne (1995). “How to build a man”, pp. 127-134 in Berger, Maurice, Brian Wallis and Simon Watson (eds.) (1995). Constructing Masculinity, Routledge, New York

Martin, George RR. (1996/2011). A Game of Thrones. Harper Voyager: London

Martin, George RR. (1998/2011). A Clash of Kings. Harper Voyager: London

Martin, George RR. (2000/2011). A Storm of Swords 1: Steel and Snow. Harper Voyager: London

Martin, George RR. (2011/2012). A Dance with Dragons. Harper Voyager: London

Mottier, Véronique. (2008). Sexuality: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Whitehead, Stephen M. (2002). Men and Masculinities, Cambridge and Malden: Polity, pp. 181-204

#asoiaf #got #feminism #cw: sexism #cw: cissexism #cw: sex #tw: rape #idk how to tag this

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orangedodge · 5 years ago

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I've always felt like Aegon contrasted Dany much more closely than what you would expect from just a rival, almost more of a renunciation of her than a mirror. I've wanted to do a side-by-side rereading of both of them for a while now, to chart out the similarities, but hadn't had the opportunity to do so. Now that the show is out, I'd seen something of a revival of the discussions over Aegon's status as a fake Targaryen or a false construction of Dany's presumed destiny, and what that may mean for her arc going forward in the other version of the story. That gave me the motivation to spend a few days on my own reread, in a direction I haven't really seen yet, but have had on my mind for a few years now.

To an extent this project also ended up influenced somewhat by posts by khaleesirin and rainhadaenerys suggesting that Dany's arc is taking her away from Westeros and towards an Essosi ending, which is also my preferred ending. Where I am right now, while I do hold the minority position that sees the show as likely a one-to-one adaption of the ending GRRM provided HBO a decade ago, I also believe that a decision was made along the way to combine Dany and Aegon into one character. So part of why I'm writing this now is to show the lines between them making that possible, while also giving myself a template for separating Aegon and Dany later.

In my reading Aegon isn't here to show us a fake Targaryen, or to be exposed as a fake hero, and the question of whether Dany is therefore the “real” hero, or the true heir, isn't really relevant to what's been set up in the tale of Young Griff. His role is construed more narrowly than those wider considerations of prophesy and politics can allow. Rather I think is role is much more personal. When you compare the attributes that Aegon has been gifted with, to Dany's actual accomplishments, I think he's very specifically been lain out more as a fake version of Dany. He's a less substantive imitation of her, produced by Varys and Illyrio to fool the people of Westeros.

Everything he's been given is closely matched by what Dany has attained for herself, but without the work put in to acquiring it that might have taught him to respect his capacity to influence the world around him. And you can see this construction in everything from his educational background, to the Revenge-of-Mediocrity entourage that has been constructed for him, to the army he's just been given for his birthday. Even in the mere fact that he can just up and declare himself a Targaryen, at this late stage in the story, and reap the political rewards without consequence, whereas Dany has been hunted since the literal moment she was born for carrying that name.

This is going to be a bit quote heavy.

There are two quotes in A Dance with Dragons that I think show the big picture of what Varys has created particularly well. One a direct summary of who Aegon is, provided by Varys himself, and the other from Tyrion's narration as he witnesses Aegon's lessons. In both cases, though it may seem a stretch at first glance, you could change the subject from Aegon to Dany without a lot of work. (Which is what HBO seems to have done in their seventh season). The main difference between them is that Aegon has the performative aspects of his training down, while the presumed core lessons Varys meant to impart still elude him. Dany, on the other hand, had to find her own way, but ended up where Aegon couldn't go himself. ��

“Aegon has been shaped for rule since before he could walk. He has been trained in arms, as befits a knight to be, but that was not the end of his education. He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them. He has lived with fisherfolk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers and mended nets and learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound, he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid. Tommen has been taught that kingship is his right. Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them.” - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 1050).

“The lesson began with languages. Young Griff spoke the Common Tongue as if he had been born to it, and was fluent in High Valyrian, the low dialects of Pentos, Tyrosh, Myr, and Lys, and the trade talk of sailors. The Volantene dialect was as new to him as it was to Tyrion, so every day they learned a few more words whilst Haldon corrected their mistakes. Meereenese was harder; its roots were Valyrian as well, but the tree had been grafted onto the harsh, ugly tongue of Old Ghis. “You need a bee up your nose to speak Ghiscari properly,” Tyrion complained. Young Griff laughed, but the Halfmaester only said, “Again.” The boy obeyed, though he rolled his eyes along with his zzzs this time. He has a better ear than me, Tyrion was forced to admit, though I’ll wager my tongue is still more nimble.

Geometry followed languages. There the boy was less adroit, but Haldon was a patient teacher, and Tyrion was able to make himself of use as well. He had learned the mysteries of squares and circles and triangles from his father’s maesters at Casterly Rock, and they came back more quickly than he would have thought.

By the time they turned to history, Young Griff was growing restive. “We were discussing the history of Volantis,” Haldon said to him. “Can you tell Yollo the difference between a tiger and an elephant?”

“Volantis is the oldest of the Nine Free Cities, first daughter of Valyria,” the lad replied, in a bored tone.” - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (pp. 204-205).

So there we have what both Varys laying out the criteria he wants his hypothetical perfect leader to match, as well as a rough idea of how Aegon's training has actually managed to proceed in real practice. What I've found more interesting than the question of whether or not Varys can deliberately social engineer a perfect king in this way—my uninformed lay opinion being that history suggests a hard no—is the question of why he was so fixated on these specific accomplishments.

To what extent do these attributes reflect the person Aegon has grown into, and what do his success and failures say about Aegon's role in this story? Because, as Aegon and Varys aren't actually real, the specific form Aegon's education takes isn't something that just arose out of happenstance. Particularly as Martin spent so much of Tyrion's early Dance chapters detailing it, it's being described as it is for a reason. I'm sure some of it's to contrast him with Rhaegar's real son, Jon (or other son, if you like), and his immediate rival for the Iron Throne, Cersei. But, even before you look at the multiple books of lead-in and set-up to Aegon's role in Dany's story, I think he's very clearly been set up as Dany's antithesis just from the above.

Why is it important, that Aegon receive this particular education? We know Varys believes him to have grown up scholarly, self-sufficient, and capable of performing to the Westerosi ideal of the warrior aristocrat, but I think that last one is more about ensuring the existing power structure accepts him as their own, and that he's capable of responding to a crisis adequately. It's more notable that his princely education seems meant to provide him with a cosmopolitan upbringing that would make him more receptive to the struggles of the common people. I think it's to this end that Varys believed Aegon should learn what it meant to be “hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid.” I think that's the core of what he meant to accomplish, and it's fairly clear that this goal was not met.

It all falls apart where Aegon has gone through life with Duck, a personal bodyguard, and Griff, who Tyrion—a man acquainted with Tywin Lannister—thinks is merciless and frightening, both always at the ready to smooth over any problems before he knows he has them. Aegon hasn't been allowed to meet new acquaintances and judge their merits for himself, he hasn't been allowed to go explore his surroundings, or to make his own decisions. He has a lord, a bodyguard, a teacher, and a priest to do all of that for him, and thus has failed to develop as either a proper lord or as an advocate of the common people.

I think the language training has an interesting way of showing that. His learned proficiency in so many languages is an impressive scholastic accomplishment, and it shows he has a genuine aptitude for academics, as well as a willingness to dedicate himself to studies that he may personally find boring but necessary. But question of whether or not he's been trained to Varys standards' isn't to be answered by how well he speaks Valyrian, but by what lessons Varys actually hoped to impart unto him, and whether or not those lessons were learned.

This is where it's important to hold in mind that none of these people are real, and that their choices—particularly ones that Martin spends so much time elaborating on—exist in the context of his world building, and the story that he is trying to communicate. Scholarship isn't received well if in Westeros if it deviates from the mold of the traditional warrior aristocracy. As such, there is a risk of making him appear superfluously educated. Outside of HV, which may be the language of the aristocracy in Westeros, or at least of liturgy, none of these languages are spoken in Westeros.

They have no known tradition of literature, poetry, philosophy, or law linked to any of these languages. Being a proficient speaker of so many languages is impressive, but he aspires to rule Westeros, which has very little diplomatic contact with the rest of the world and no inherent need for the king to be capable of acting as his own translator, and he would have little need for anything except maybe High Valyrian in his typical administrative duties. I think therefore, the language training is a signifier of the kind of cultural and social conditioning Varys wanted to impart.

I would speculate that somewhere along the way, Haldon and Griff confused the desired end with the means Varys devised for knowing it was reached. I think knowing the languages of the Free Cities, after spending a lifetime sailing the Rhoyne, was a way for Varys to know that the lesson sunk in, and that Aegon had come to know the people of Essos, and thus might understand ordinary people as though he were one of them. He wanted Aegon to know what it was like to be afraid and to be powerless, like the common people of the Free Cities, so that he would come to Westeros as a sympathetic advocate. He wanted him to know how easily security and safety can be snatched away, so that he would respect the power Varys and Illyrio propose to invest him with. And this detail of Aegon's upbringing is specifically there as a parallel to Dany's.

The narrow sea was often stormy, and Dany had crossed it half a hundred times as a girl, running from one Free City to the next half a step ahead of the Usurper’s hired knives. - Martin, George R. R.. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) (p. 106).

After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever. They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in any one place. Her brother would not allow it. - Martin, George R. R.. A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1).

It didn't really connect with me until this reread that Aegon's Valyrian lessons even include the dialects of Pentos, Lys, Volantis, Myr, Tyrosh, and then end with Meereen's. After the house with the red door was closed to them, Dany and Viserys lived at various times in Pentos, Lys, Volantis, Myr, and Tyrosh, and they lived in each for a considerable period of time (and since she's been back to Braavos at least once, its likely they've revisited the others as well). Only Braavos and Qohor are missing from Aegon's lessons. And by the end of A Storm of Swords, Dany's journey has finally brought her to Meereen. And just as Meereen is presumed by many to be Dany's last stop before returning to Westeros, Aegon's lessons end on the subject of Meereen, while he's on the outset of his own voyage west.

Does Dany also speak each of those languages as well? It's not fully confirmed, but we're told she knows what the people in the “alleys and wine sinks of Pentos” are saying about Viserys, and we see her making small talk with Illyrio's servants. We know she spent time with the sailors on the ships crossing the Narrow Sea, and exploring the camps that would spring up on the journey between Astapor and Meereen. Given how frequently Dany is said to have sailed the Narrow Sea, we can assume she's had some exposure to their common trade language as well. She liked to spend time exploring the market places of Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh, and we're given the same word as before, “alleys,” to remind us both that she was homeless, and was just wandering around, getting a street-side view of things, and not the more sheltered tour of Essos that Aegon was provided.

We learn in the third book that she knows the Astapori dialect, well enough to follow what Kraznys and the others are saying, and shortly after visiting Yunkai has picked up enough of the similar Yunkai dialect to get to know the freedmen, whose dialect is supposed to be mutually intelligible with Astapori, but otherwise extremely difficult to follow for Valyrian speakers without exposure to the Ghiscari dialects. She's fluent enough in both HV and Tyroshi that they're assumed to be her native language by other Valyrians, like the wine seller in Vaes Dothrak, who hears her as Tyroshi. Since Martin always specifies every instance where Dany is speaking the Westerosi language, her narration is probably being translated from one of these.

There's an odd connection with Tyrosh, between Dany and Aegon as well,

Tyrion turned to Young Griff and gave the lad his most disarming smile. “Blue hair may serve you well in Tyrosh, but in Westeros children will throw stones at you and girls will laugh in your face.”

The lad was taken aback. “My mother was a lady of Tyrosh. I dye my hair in memory of her.” - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 131).

That Dany is assumed to be Tyroshi, and Aegon fakes being Tyroshi is probably not an intentional parallel, but is definitely the kind of thing you might work into your book subconsciously while parallels of this type are on the mind.

While Dany had a Dothraki language tutor, we know she picked up the language the same way she learned their customs, by exploring the khalasar and Vaes Dothrak. She seems to have picked up Meereenese fairly quickly as well, even though—according to David Petersen—it's meant to have wildly different syntax and noun genders. After only a few months she's at least comfortable enough to hold a conversation in Meereenese, translates what others are saying in her narration, and receives counsel from Reznak and Skahaz primarily in their own language whenever they're in private, and is capable of holding court and taking petitions without Missandei or one of her other aides translating for her (so it's unlikely that she's speaking a more commonplace prestige dialect).

Part of why it's hard to tell how many languages Dany speaks is that she doesn't actually distinguish dialects of Low Valyrian in her narration. She just calls all of them Valyrian, or “the Valyrian of the Free Cities” (which, after perhaps five rereads, I finally realized, to my embarrassment, was the key to the Astapor plot making sense), and doesn't really distinguish one from another in her narration, in contrast to characters like Arya, Tyrion, and Quentyn who do not have her experience living in the Free Cities, and who find it impossible to understand the Low Valyrian dialects that they haven't studied.

Prior to the publication of A Dance with Dragons, we never really had any indication that the differing dialects of Low Valyrian had any variety of mutual unintelligibility to one another, because we'd only known them through Dany's point of view, and from the points of view of characters who had no knowledge of LV at all. It was only upon Tyrion's journey to Essos and the introduction of Aegon that we learned that, outside of a few closely related dialects like Astapori and Yunkish, and those of the Disputed Lands, that they were generally considered to be different languages entirely. It's not until she's been in residence in Meereen for a few months that she starts referring to the Ghiscari dialects by their local names.

(Though granted, some of this could be that—prior to Feast Dance—Martin may not have fully decided on how to name each dialect, with (most notably) the decision to start naming the Astapor and Meereen dialects “Ghiscari,” as opposed to Valyrian, not coming until much later.)

In Dany's case, other than the Westerosi language, and Dothraki, she didn't have access to a tutor. There's a clear implication that she's always learning through direct exposure, and that her language fluency is the outward sign of her cultural fluency. That she was homeless during the years before she moved to Pentos (notably when she lived in Myr and Lys) increases the likelihood that she was exposed to the local language of each, and not a koine language, prestige language, or government language.

In effect, Aegon has replicated Dany's journey from a chair. He was tutored by a scholar, when Dany was immersed in her surroundings. That's not a mark against him, of course, and I'm quite jealous of his success. But he's learning in a sterile environment, isolated from anyone who hasn't been carefully vetted. He's traveled all around the Free Cities, but he was kept safe along the way, while Dany's hanging out in the marketplace exploring her surroundings and playing with the other kids her age.

Dany reads history books for fun, and enjoys listening to oral histories. She seems comfortable enough at it as well, we've seen her quickly scan over messages in court, and summarize them for everyone else, which is noteworthy in a setting where reading regularly enough to be confident in it is unusual even for lords and masters. She's notably one of the only two people in the series who clearly reads for pleasure, not just for administrative tasks, or because they're interested in learning. Those things are true of her as well, but Dany and Tyrion are the only characters who break opened a book to relax. And Dany has read enough books for it to become mundane enough to her that she can forget where she's read one thing or another.

For Aegon learning about the Free Cities disinterests him. Again, not necessarily a mark against him, we all have our own interests. But here again, Aegon is failing in the criteria that was designed around him, and it describes Dany better than it does him. It goes back to Dany talking with Illyrio's servants and Drogo's people, and the kids in the alleys of the Free Cities, and the pilgrims in Vaes Dothrak. She just likes learning about people. Dany learns about the new cities she visits by reading their books, listening to their histories and stories, and talking to everyone she meets.

Aegon doesn't seem to, and he's only really getting Haldon's own flawed perspective on history instead. How well is it actually researched? Tyrion seems to find a lot of holes, specifically because Tyrion has read many differing sources on individual histories, and has pieced together what he thinks is the best, most consistent, understanding of what actually happened. Haldon appears to be relying on only a single source, and is repeating what he was told. He's teaching to the test, in our parlance. Aegon doesn't really care about the history he's getting, and because of that, he hasn't really learned to challenge the information he's receiving, and just goes along with whatever sounds good.

It makes a degree of sense from his perspective. He wants to rule Westeros, not Volantis, or Slaver's Bay. So while he's dutiful to his lessons, we see that he treats them as a superfluous duty, something he's been told he needs to do to be king, and of no further value to him. To an extent I think this highlights Aegon as a wish fulfillment character of the fans, and a rebuttal to the impulse that Dany should just head west already and forget about Meereen. By doing just that, he's slipped into the role that the fans (and HBO) have always wanted for Dany, and potentially into the storyline that was reserved for Dany in Martin's original pitch letter.

“No tale. Simple truth. The why of it is harder to grasp. Sack Meereen, aye, why not? I would have done the same in her place. The slaver cities reek of gold, and conquest requires coin. But why linger? Fear? Madness? Sloth?” - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 344).

Thus Dany's adherence to doing her duty to her people, at the cost of deviating from her “correct” role, is perceived as madness by Aegon's followers. As Aegon was raised believing it's his destiny to rule Westeros wisely and justly, both he and his retainers have no understanding of why someone so similar would take such a different path. Aegon has no interest in helping the people of the Free Cities or Slaver's Bay, nor do the men and women dedicated to seeing him succeed, and they cannot fathom a world otherwise. They're no different than Jorah counseling Dany to leave 80,000 people to starve and be enslaved, for the convenience of her own personal ambition. But unlike with Dany, Aegon isn't ultimately the one in charge, and even if he were, he doesn't have any information his counselors don't want him to have.

“Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them.” And he might at that, but he has a very narrowly construed conception of “his people” if so, limiting it only to his hypothetical future subjects. And his followers haven't gotten any such message, as shown by the way they treat the out group with suspicion and hostility, and will blindly take any opportunity to advance the time table of their invasion. Dany's people understand what she's about, as shown in A Dance with Dragons, and they do their best to carry on as she would when she's not there.

And its worse than just Aegon retinue being carefully vetted to make sure they're sufficiently useful and loyal. His private army was vetted as well, and not by him. Aegon does not know any of these people, he has not had a chance to win their loyalty, they have not had a chance to prove their worth to him. He doesn't really know anything about them, and neither does Griff, because he too has deliberately kept them at a distance in the name of protecting Aegon.

In comparison, Dany knows her subordinates personally. She talks with Selmy, Grey Worm, Marselen, Symon Stripeback, Tal Toraq, and Strong Belwas regularly. She appointed most of them to their positions when she accepted their service, and they're a regular part of her councils. She also personally negotiated for her alliances with Daario and Ben, and made the decision on her own to work with Skahaz and his followers, and to allow them to earn her trust. Should that seem purely a practical matter of their skill in military affairs, she also knew Rylona Rhee well enough to have been told her personal history, and to have had the opportunity to be impressed by her talent in music, and remembers the positions she took in their governing councils. And Missandei knows her well enough to comfortable with playing with and being teased by her, and to be trusted with bookkeeping and administrative work.

I don't plan to go into literally every case Varys cites of Aegon learning to work, but I found it somewhat interesting that he highlighted how Aegon “knows how to bind a wound,” given what he does with it. First aid is a good skill to have, especially in this setting, but the object of Aegon's training is for him to share the trials and pains of the commons. Knowing how to care for the injured is nice, but Aegon does so dispassionately, purely in his capacity as a claimant king. While he does good in giving the order that saves Tyrion's life, he takes little to no interest in the recovery of a man who nearly died fighting for him. If all you're doing is slapping a band-aid on them, and then leaving them behind, what are you really doing? It's better than nothing, and of course Tyrion is happy to be alive, but these are the easy chances Aegon has to form connections with his people and show them that he cares, and he doesn't take them.

Too many of the men they had sent into the camp had been stricken by the flux themselves. Others had been attacked on the way back to the city. Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. “I will not turn away from them,” she said stubbornly. “A queen must know the sufferings of her people.” - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 521).

Jhogo sucked in his breath. “Khaleesi, no.” The bell in his braid rang softly as he dismounted. “You must not get any closer. Do not let them touch you! Do not!”

Dany walked right past him. There was an old man on the ground a few feet away, moaning and staring up at the grey belly of the clouds. She knelt beside him, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and pushed back his dirty grey hair to feel his brow.

“His flesh is on fire. I need water to bathe him. Seawater will serve. Marselen, will you fetch some for me? I need oil as well, for the pyre. Who will help me burn the dead?” - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (pp. 523-524).

Doreah took a fever and grew worse with every league they crossed. Her lips and hands broke with blood blisters, her hair came out in clumps, and one evenfall she lacked the strength to mount her horse. Jhogo said they must leave her or bind her to her saddle, but Dany remembered a night on the Dothraki sea, when the Lysene girl had taught her secrets so that Drogo might love her more. She gave Doreah water from her own skin, cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died, shivering. Only then would she permit the khalasar to press on. - Martin, George R. R.. A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2) (pp. 145-146).

Dany on the other hand, is shown to actually comfort the people around her, even if she can't do anything but sit with them while they die. She justifies herself to her companions by citing her duty as a queen and as khaleesi, but it's clear she would have behaved the same way regardless. It's a sign that she actually cares about the people she's met along the way, above and beyond what is personally convenient to her, or even safe for her to show. Whereas with Aegon, like so much else about him, its just performative. You're alive thanks to the grace of the king, now off you go to make yourself useful to him.

Young Griff did not seem to share his misgivings. “Let them try and trouble us, we’ll show them what we’re made of.”

“We are made of blood and bone, in the image of the Father and the Mother,” said Septa Lemore. “Make no vainglorious boasts, I beg you. Pride is a grievous sin. The stone men were proud as well, and the Shrouded Lord was proudest of them all.” - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 256).

Griff drew his longsword. “Yollo, light the torches. Lad, take Lemore back to her cabin and stay with her.”

Young Griff gave his father a stubborn look. “Lemore knows where her cabin is. I want to stay.”

“We are sworn to protect you,” Lemore said softly.

“I don’t need to be protected. I can use a sword as well as Duck. I’m half a knight.”

“And half a boy,” said Griff. “Do as you are told. Now.”

The youth cursed under his breath and flung his pole down onto the deck. The sound echoed queerly in the fog, and for a moment it was as if poles were falling around them. “Why should I run and hide? Haldon is staying, and Ysilla. Even Hugor.”- Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (pp. 260-261).

Dany had wanted to lead the attack herself, but to a man her captains said that would be madness, and her captains never agreed on anything. Instead she remained in the rear, sitting atop her silver in a long shirt of mail. - Martin, George R. R.. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) (p. 979).

As far as their ability to perform to the expectations of the men under their command and the people under their protection, insofar as their conduct on the battlefield is concerned, they both have the necessary performative aspects down. But while Aegon is a classic member of the warrior aristocracy, Dany's role is closer to soldiering, which is ultimately more useful to the people around her. She's not a glory hound and doesn't care about chivalry, she's strictly there to win, and to get everyone out of danger alive. This is a radically different mindset from Aegon, who just tells everyone who can't fight to get out of the way and take care of themselves.

There's part of Dany that is tempted to put herself in direct danger at Meereen, but that's not about seeking glory—it's about feeling useful when there's otherwise no obvious place for her once her orders have been given. It comes after she'd stayed behind in the camp and faced the uncertainty of not knowing what was going on in Yunkai. It shows that she's not actually comfortable holding herself apart from others; if they're in danger, she feels that she must be in danger as well. And ultimately, she finds a way to still there with her men if anything goes wrong, but at a safe distance behind the lines, which is where someone in her position of leadership actually is most useful.

It's a bit more complicated in Aegon's case. There's an element of wanting to be useful as well, but it's also presented as more a manifestation of his untested youthful vainglory than anything. And it also goes to show how sheltered he's been by his retinue, who should have clamped that impulse down by now. There surely is a middle ground that could satisfy both Aegon's needs and those of his caretakers, if not their respective egos, but instead of reaching it they're kept separated by Aegon's impulsive need to prove himself, and Griff and company's need to keep him out of trouble.

He's not really Griff and Co.'s king, in essence, he's become their child, which might not be a problem in and of itself, except for the part where they're planning to launch an intercontinental war of conquest in his name.

Despite the incredible burden they're preparing for him to take up, Illyrio and Griff didn't trust him with Tyrion's identity, instead opting to allow potentially dangerous fugitive enter the inner circle and come along for the ride in secret. Aegon really needed to know, for his own ability to protect himself if Tyrion proved untrustworthy, that the man who lit Blackwater Bay on fire, and murdered both Tywin and (so is believed) Joffrey, has been sleeping down the hall from him.

But they don't trust him with that. They just let him think all is well, and everything will work out alright, and it's not long before we see he's come to rely upon and internalize that lesson beyond all reason. He really thinks Aunt Dany is going to just give him a dragon and beg him to lose half her men at sea too, just because Griff says she has to and Griff never lies. Aegon's insistence that everything will go according to his aspirations, is matched by Dany's constant introspection and fear of failure, and her early certainty that Illyrio was just having Viserys on. It solidifies the idea that Griff really is more of the father in this relationship than a trusted aide.

On the subject of being sheltered, I think there's a significant, widespread, misreading of Dany's backstory on this subject, that I'd like to address. She was not Viserys' shadow all of those years wandering Western Essos, or limited to seeing only what he allowed her to see. With all of the talk of her wandering alleys and meeting servants and merchants, her familiarity with the food and art of different city-states, and her confidence in exploring new venues on her own, she must have been more her brother's latchkey kid than his hostage. He was abusive and controlling, but he was also disinterested when she wasn't immediately useful to him, and was never organized or sophisticated enough to keep a close eye on what she was doing.

Young Griff arrayed his army for attack, with dragon, elephants, and heavy horse up front. A young man’s formation, as bold as it is foolish. He risks all for the quick kill. He let the prince have first move. Haldon stood behind them, watching the play. When the prince reached for his dragon, Tyrion cleared his throat.

“I would not do that if I were you. It is a mistake to bring your dragon out too soon.” He smiled innocently. “Your father knew the dangers of being overbold.” - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 305).

The prince stared at the playing board.

“My dragon—”

“—is too far away to save you. You should have moved her to the center of the battle.”

“But you said��”

“I lied. Trust no one. And keep your dragon close.” - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 309).

During the chess game, Tyrion gives Aegon intentionally bad advance about how best to utilize the dragon piece, in their game's current setup. Intentional comparison to Astapor? Dany knew how best to use her dragon, and wouldn't be dissuaded by the advisers who thought they knew best, and who thought they needed to control her. Aegon has his own ideas as well, but he discards them immediately just because Tyrion says so, when facing far lower stakes.

Aegon goes on to lose the game, which transitions into him making his ever first plan as king. It's a bad one too, and his supporters are all too eager to jump on it. It's an interesting transition; he's been their child sidekick for years, but the second he hits the right notes they expect of a king, they're willing to throw doubt and caution aside because he can look and sound the very part they've trained him to fake. They've just meandered around Volantis for years waiting for Illyrio to fix things for them, and when he can't, they jump on the first plan available, over all rational objections. Overly bold, just as Tyrion warned.

Dany, in contrast, abandoned Illyrio's plans at first opportunity and made her own way, with the support of the people who were there and able to work with her. She relies on her advisers, but the relationship is far more reciprocal than what Aegon has been allowed. Because of that, they can combine their individual strengths and perspectives, and arrive at a plan of action that's useful for more than merely indulging their own smug sense of Byronic pathos.

Yet they were all the horse she had, and she dared not go without them. The Unsullied might be the finest infantry in all the world, as Ser Jorah claimed, but she needed scouts and outriders as well. - Martin, George R. R.. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) (p. 574).

While Joso’s Cock and the other rams were battering the city gates and her archers were firing flights of flaming arrows over the walls, Dany had sent two hundred men along the river under cover of darkness to fire the hulks in the harbor. But that was only to hide their true purpose. As the flaming ships drew the eyes of the defenders on the walls, a few half-mad swimmers found the sewer mouths and pried loose a rusted iron grating. - Martin, George R. R.. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) (p. 986).

While Dany can also be described as “bold” and aggressive, as Tyrion dismisses Aegon, she's not overly-so. Dany is aggressive, but it's a methodical, considered, aggression. Aegon losing half his men is specifically tied to both his reckless lack of planning, and his YOLO driven assumption that everything will just work out on its own to give him a throne. Dany, meanwhile is someone who knows the cost of even a single failure and knows she can't afford to have one, and so she knows to gain as much information and leave as little to chance as possible.

At Yunkai she treats separately with the leaders of each of the forces charged with the city's defense, to gauge their personalities while they're isolated from one another, and she has her bloodriders thoroughly scouting out the physical location at the same time. During the long march to Yunkai, she's shown to have interviewed everyone she had access to with experience related to the Wise Masters.

It took an hour to work out all the details. Now begins the most dangerous time, Dany thought as her captains departed to their commands. She could only pray that the gloom of the night would hide her preparations from the foe. - Martin, George R. R.. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) (p. 581).

And only after this preparation does she actually commit to a plan to defeat the city and free its slaves, and not only does she pull out a fairly complicated plan, but does so after rigging the game for herself as thoroughly as possible. She gives the Yunkai'i and the sellswords both different—false—timelines, gets the Second Sons drunk, uses the campfires of her noncombatants to mask a midnight attack, and relies on the psychological effect that charging Dothraki will have on poorly trained conscripts. And, remember, she didn't actually need to do any of that. She almost certainly would have won either way, but she wanted to win as decisively as possible, to keep herself and her people in the best possible situation going forward.

Judging by the amount of time they're planning out the battle, we can also determine that it was an extended back and forth between the group, and so we see Jorah, Grey Worm, Rakharo, Jhogo, and Aggo are all trusted with a great deal of trust, as well as autonomy, once it's time for them to move.

I have to admit that prior to this reread I'd never been fond of the taking of Meereen, which seemed to attributable to luck for my taste, and didn't appear to work well as a follow-up to Yunkai and Astapor. But I'd failed to really account for the sheer scale of Dany's entourage, which had so many tens of thousands available, that it's not luck at all that one of them would just happen to be familiar with Meereen's sewers. And with the distraction provided by assaulting the harbor, and through her use of fire arrows to ruin the night vision the city's defenders, it was a fairly safe plan. They either made it into the city, or they'd just be left to wait it out in a sewer until everything was over.

More importantly, I'd neglected the relative lack of importance of the sewer infiltration in my previous assessment. She didn't actually need it at all, but was happy enough to take the advantage as it presented itself. Altogether it paints a good picture of a woman who really puts in the work at gathering information, fostering relationships, and taking advantage of the expertise of the people around her, to ultimately manufacture her own luck just by reaping the rewards that her own conduct puts her in position to find. Her initial liberation of Slaver's Bay works to one of Dany's biggest strengths as a leader: she's never found an advantage she was too proud to take, and she isn't afraid to look greedy by taking too many.

And a lot of Dany's advantages come from being a good judge of character and talent, and being generally good at knowing how much to trust the people around her, and how to sort out responsibilities appropriately.

“No. Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun’s son and the mummer’s dragon.” - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 166).

For Dany, here are just a small selection of the people who gravitate towards her. Ironborn, Dornishmen, Westermen, Stormlanders, Valyrians, and red priests. Marwyn as well, in A Feast For Crows. You can probably throw in Benerro and Volantis as well, on the basis of the widow of the waterfront (“Oh, I think it will be war as well, but not the war they want.”) as well as the show's consolidation of all of the Volantene characters into Kinvara. This is basically every major group represented, of the cities and nations we've visited personally, or who have had direct impact upon the story. She's made contacts nearly everywhere, and where she hasn't, she's sufficiently inspired the people around her that her story has encouraged others to seek her out as well.

Dany and Aegon both draw followers heavily from the dispossessed, but notice that Dany's people tend to be drawn from one of two groups: people who want something to believe in, and people with nowhere else to go, who are in search of protection. Aegon's people are generally those with no other options at all, and those searching for revenge out of bitterness and spiteful nihilism. These are a group of people who just weren't good enough for their aspirations, resent their failures, and are looking for one last wagon to hitch themselves to.

Griff was incompetent and ineffectual as Hand of the King, and dreams of being Aegon's very own Tywin. Haldon wasn't good enough to graduate his university, and spends his days spitefully challenging total strangers to trivia contests, and threatening them with death when he loses. Should these boys really be educating a king? Yes, Dany has awful people in her retainer too, like Jorah Mormont, but she doesn't blindly and incuriously trust them to have her best interests in heart. She gives them clear, specific, instructions and carefully keeps watch on what they do with them to see how much trust they deserve.

Outside of maybe Duck, and Septa Lemore, Aegon's men have no higher aspirations, just romantic visions. They've all given up on that. It's no wonder that half of them end up missing in a storm, and it's surely no accident that Tyrion doesn't belong with them. I talked earlier about how poorly positioned Aegon and his supporters are to take advantage of one another in a mutually beneficial way, and I think the short argument between Lemore and Griff over the Golden Company is further instructive.

“We have gone to great lengths to keep Prince Aegon hidden all these years,” Lemore reminded him. “The time will come for him to wash his hair and declare himself, I know, but that time is not now. Not to a camp of sellswords.”

“If Harry Strickland means him ill, hiding him on the Shy Maid will not protect him. Strickland has ten thousand swords at his command. We have Duck. Aegon is all that could be wanted in a prince. They need to see that, Strickland and the rest. These are his own men.”

“His because they’re bought and paid for. Ten thousand armed strangers, plus hangers-on and camp followers. All it takes is one to bring us all to ruin." - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 336).

These are strangers. They don't know Aegon yet. He's just been given these men. The appendix actually calls them of “uncertain loyalty.” Given House Blackfyre's association with the Golden Company, we might ascribe the company's saying, “beneath the gold, the bitter steel” as well, to be a way of saying both of them are an off-brand imitation.

It also reminds me a bit of Stannis' fake lightbringer, and the hints regarding Drogon. Aegon's almost certainly going to end up with the sword, Blackfyre, and Dany just happens to have a dragon that breathes black fire, and is associated with swords. He's even introduced as a puppet dragon in Dany's Clash chapters, in contrast to Dany's mythical role of the Last Dragon. Aegon's a fake, and to show that his retinue has literally been gilded over. It's also surprisingly reminiscent of Viserys and his golden crown. And like Viserys, what are these men actually worth to anyone?

From that day to this, the men of the Golden Company had lived and died in the Disputed Lands, fighting for Myr or Lys or Tyrosh in their pointless little wars, and dreaming of the land their fathers had lost. - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 86).

I ask, what have the Golden Company ever actually accomplished? They have had some early successes in the Stormlands, true, but it's hard to know how seriously to take that when the Stormlands have been leaderless and at war for years, and everyone who knows what they're doing is either in King's Landing or the North. And I somehow doubt that they're going to do a prudent job of governing the fiefdoms they're seizing.

The Golden Company have a fearsome reputation, but it mostly extends from sacking their own client for failure to pay, and of taking control of disorganized pirate bands in the Stepstones. How much of their reputation is an authentic reflection of their skill, rather than a product of the same grand guignol that built Gregor Clegane's? Their real record has been one of pointless little wars, failed invasions of Westeros, and kicking down at people who can't defend themselves. And they seem to be playing a shell game with the three cities of the Disputed Lands, with how often their contract changes hands, and how rarely they're ever called on to do anything in that conflict.

They found the Golden Company beside the river as the sun was lowering in the west. It was a camp that even Arthur Dayne might have approved of—compact, orderly, defensible. A deep ditch had been dug around it, with sharpened stakes inside. The tents stood in rows, with broad avenues between them. The latrines had been placed beside the river, so the current would wash away the wastes. The horse lines were to the north, and beyond them, two dozen elephants grazed beside the water, pulling up reeds with their trunks. Griff glanced at the great grey beasts with approval. There is not a warhorse in all of Westeros that will stand against them.

Tall battle standards of cloth-of-gold flapped atop lofty poles along the perimeters of the camp. Beneath them, armed and armored sentries walked their rounds with spears and crossbows, watching every approach. - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 339).

We have ten thousand men in the company, as I am sure Lord Connington remembers from his years of service with us. Five hundred knights, each with three horses. Five hundred squires, with one mount apiece. And elephants, we must not forget the elephants. - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 345).

Black Balaq commanded one thousand bows. In his youth, Jon Connington had shared the disdain most knights had for bowmen, but he had grown wiser in exile. In its own way, the arrow was as deadly as the sword, so for the long voyage he had insisted that Homeless Harry Strickland break Balaq’s command into ten companies of one hundred men and place each company upon a different ship. - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 876).

A third of Balaq’s men used crossbows, another third the double-curved horn-and-sinew bows of the east. Better than these were the big yew longbows borne by the archers of Westerosi blood, and best of all were the great bows of goldenheart treasured by Black Balaq himself and his fifty Summer Islanders. - Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 876).

I've always found the structure of the Golden Company interesting. So we have a force of 10,000 men consisting of 24 elephants, 1,000 archers, and 1,000 knights and squires, with the remainder appearing to be infantry with spears. Within the archers alone, we see the important thing is highlighting that they've drawing influence from each of Westeros, the Dothraki, the Free Cities, and the Summer Islands.

Doesn't this sound a bit familiar? Dany also starts off with 1,000 armored guys with bows riding horses, courtesy of her alliances with Daario and Ben, and with around 8,000 to 10,600—the numbering gets weird whether the trainees are included or not—guys on foot with spears. So visually, the Golden Company and Dany's forces are roughly the same idea, developed convergently.

She later gains 2,000 more mercenaries from the Windblown, and “several hundred” pit fighters. Later on she'll also have nearly twice as many infantry as she did when she set out from Astapor, when somewhere around 10,000 freedmen have added to the initial group Unsullied. That's again, visually similar to the Golden Company, and it's the force whose loyalty she earns as an indirect consequence of not peacing out to Volantis to join up with them.

Throughout her time in Meereen the leaders of those thousands of freedmen are fleshed out as they gain more experience as well as become influential among Dany's people. While Aegon is given 10,000 men and wanders off to Westeros right away, Dany wins the loyalty of her own 10,000, and stays with the people she's grown to feel responsible for. While Aegon loses half his men right away, Dany at least doubles her forces right away, putting her in a better position to accomplish her immediate goals than Aegon in his.

The size of Dany's forces continually increase while Aegon's continually divide and split apart, and there's a general theme of different groups of people coming together within the traveling city that's sprung up around Dany's person. The Brazen Beasts are formed from equal numbers of freedmen and shavepates. We don't really know how many there are, beyond there being enough to secure a city with a population likely in excess of 1 million, and to defend its walls during a major siege.

Barristan has 26 squires with him by the end of A Dance with Dragons. Three in particular are highlighted, the Red Lamb, Tumco Lho, and Larraq, are all former slaves who become knights. What's to notice about these three? They're all slaves—presumably from Meereen—but the Red Lamb is originally from Lhazarene (Dany's primary ally in the region, whose support she negotiated), Tumco is a pit fighter, and Larraq was one of the slaves of Meereen. All three are slaves, but within them we see a microcosm of her support from Lhazar, the freedmen, and even the reluctant, sometimes fraught, support she has among the pit fighters.

Dany starts off with a similar army to Aegon, but her's grows, because it's actually not just an army. Dany's freedmen are their own community.

The raggle-taggle host of freedmen dwarfed her own, but they were more burden than benefit. Perhaps one in a hundred had a donkey, a camel, or an ox; most carried weapons looted from some slaver’s armory, but only one in ten was strongenough to fight, and none was trained. They ate the land bare as they passed, like locusts in sandals. Yet Dany could not bring herself to abandon them as Ser Jorah and her bloodriders urged. I told them they were free. I cannot tell them now they are not free to join me. She gazed at the smoke rising from their cookfires and swallowed a sigh. She might have the best footsoldiers in the world, but she also had the worst. - Martin, George R. R.. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) (p. 574).

Her host numbered more than eighty thousand after Yunkai, but fewer than a quarter of them were soldiers. - Martin, George R. R.. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) (p. 775).

Aegon's army is Dany's army—the difference is that Dany gathered her force herself, and it's primary purpose has developed into protecting the greater community that's formed around it. Aegon's army is only there to conquer Westeros, and someone just bought it for him. If Dany finds herself in need of a specialization that goes outside what Grey Worm and Daario can take care of, she has tens of thousands of people on hand to ask. When it's time for Aegon and his men to go to Westeros, they just ask the first people they meet to give them boats, and hope they don't sink, because that's all they can do.

Therefore to be more precise, we must compare the Golden Company not to Dany's army, but to Dany's khalasar, as her fighting force has become indistinguishable from her nation by the time she reaches the gates of Meereen. When adding in the freedmen and women bearing arms to the Unsullied and the sellswords, you even have the noncombatant section of the the camp in a similar proportion to that of a Dothraki khalasar. When standing before the gates of Meereen, Dany thinks to herself that the Great Masters do not treat her comunity with the same respect that they would treat a khalasar, showing where her mind is. When she resolves to stay in Meereen, she looks back and realizes “[she has] been more khal than queen.”

Her Mhysa identity itself is also linked directly to Dany's status as khaleesi. The moment she was hailed as Mhysa was the moment the freedmen ceased to be a burden and became her people. It's important therefore to note that there is actually no conflict between Dany-as-Mhysa and Dany-as-the-Dragon. Rather, they are intrinsically linked, as Mhysa is directly intertwined with Dany's identity as khaleesi, and the freedmen with her khalasar, which are both made possible by the power of her dragons.

Rather, this trio identity of Mhysa/khaleesi/Dragon is directly in opposition to Dany as Daenerys I, that is, Dany-as-Queen, the aspect of herself that still works to benefit the privileged few at the top of the social and economic pyramid, that compels her to make an effort to treat with the Great Masters. This struggle can be seen even in Dany's name, which in A Dance with Dragons, for the first time, swings back and forth in her narration between Dany and Daenerys, rather than Dany being dominant as in past volumes.

And for once, this aspect of Dany is closely paralleled with, rather than contrasted by, Aegon in his own quest to retake the Iron Throne for solely his own benefit and that of his elite supporters, with provision to the common people made on a case by case basis only. Dany's ongoing struggle throughout Dance is in effect a struggle to resist the temptation of becoming like Aegon, which is the same as becoming her show counterpart.

I don't think it's fair to judge her too harshly for her works with the Great Masters, even if they do represent backsliding onto the wrong path. Even as a homeless teenage war orphan, with no formal education, she has a lot of experiences to learn from and to unlearn. And as she has no one to lean on with experience in the right direction, her politics have by necessity been made up on the spot, guided only by experience and her own moral clarity.

I'd like to cite @khaleesirin on that note, who summarized Dany’s tendency flesh out her principles from her experiences better in the linked post.

Because Dany is the closest thing we really have to a character whose headspace we can insert ourselves into, I think we've developed a collective tendency to forget that she's been forced to make things up as she goes along. Her path forward is a bit sloppier than we're used to seeing in this type of fiction, but she's definitely moving further along it all the same, as experience forces her to fine tune her way of doing things.

There had been a throne there, a fantastic thing of carved and gilded wood in the shape of a savage harpy. She had taken one long look and commanded it be broken up for firewood. “I will not sit in the harpy’s lap,” she told them. Instead she sat upon a simple ebony bench. It served, though she had heard the Meereenese muttering that it did not befit a queen. - Martin, George R. R.. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) (p. 980).

Dany's bench is seen as less queenly, and that seems to be exactly the point in having it. She had correctly identified the throne as an inherently oppressive construct. She is again being “more khal than queen” to her people. What I think is interesting about that conflict is how it's a development upon what Dany's already learned from her time with the Dothraki. When Drogo resided in Pentos, he held court in his manse not unlike any other magister. When Dany resides in Meereen, she does so in one of their pyramids, and holds court in the style the Ghiscari seem to, albeit with her own twist to show her alignment with the freedmen. But then once that's done, it's back to the felt coats and painted leather vests, just as Drogo kept his own customs on the road.

Khal Drogo is, admittedly, a surprising model for a lefty revolutionary to pattern herself on, but I think the important thing is less his example, and more that he and his khalasar provided her with a new set of rules to explore herself within. Knowing them gave her permission to live among her people, putting on the face she needed to guide them to safety, and to allow herself to be called upon through a criteria other than blood and birthright. As for the rest, there's still more room to grow, and I think it follows that when Dany leaves Slaver's Bay, whether she follows the show's course or not, she's inevitably going to be more Nymeria than Aegon.

The first thing Dany ever did as a conquering queen, by the way, was take one look at the throne she'd won, and order it destroyed and replaced with a nice bench. Just saying, I don't think Drogon is destroying the Iron Throne as his own political thesis in the books.

So what are we left with when we consider the case of Aegon? He's a manufactured hero, he's been handed the key to a grand destiny, through no merit of his own, and he's been set up to fail spectacularly. That would normally imply that a real hero needs to emerge, the woman whose destiny he's stolen, coming to power through the longer rode that Aegon ignored. But it's not necessarily true that just because common storytelling logic dictates such an outcome, that it will come to fruition.

It seems odd, and I think necessarily unfulfilling after five full novels, to think that we may be presented a succession of failed heroes, only to reveal the real hero, and then pull the rug out from under her as well in the end. Yet it isn't inconceivable that Martin would invoke the same bait-and-switch multiple times to diminishing returns—after all, consider that Quentyn's story, exploring the trauma of war, was already presented to us, with greater detail and closer and more personally, through Arya's time in the Riverlands—but it would feel like a tremendous waste of time, and hard to square with how disconnected Daenerys' arc has been from the other characters.

After all, she doesn't think she's Azor Ahai Reborn, or the Prince that was Promised. Unlike the fans, she's only vaguely aware that these things exist, and has been spending most of her time trying to end slavery. I do wonder, when I look at Aegon, if he exists so that there will be someone on hand to fulfill Daenerys' original purpose as the warlord who invades Westeros after years of infighting. Do we actually need two characters for that? There is, of course, an element of wishful thinking, but I'd like to think Martin's realized that Dany's character has grown too far from her original design.

Aegon is false because his path is false. And if his path is false, than that implies that kingship itself is the false path. We've seen Dany move further away from the Iron Throne throughout her arc, both geographically, and sociologically. When she finally has a taste of being queen, she's miserable, and can't stop reliving her past actions—as Mhysa, as the Mother of Dragons, those actions that brought her to where she is—as ones inherently in opposition to the idea of being a queen. Unless Dance truly is just a course correction document, made to transform Dany (and Jon, and Tyrion) into different characters, it strikes me likely that Aegon's purpose is to show the reader that Dany is right to move on and break free of what she's been taught is her duty to House Targaryen.

Aegon wasn't just accidentally set up as her negative. I've always thought, or at least since Dance that her arc was taking her away from Westeros. Her fate seems as though it should be tied to Essos, with her people—specifically that nomadic city of freedmen and Dothraki that she's adopted as her own. Why abandon that? Why introduce these flawed analogues for Dany—Viserys, Aegon, arguably Stannis—only to have her make their mistakes and lose everything she's found? A dark arc is one thing, so is a brief layover in Westeros for humanitarian purposes, but to abandon everything and just become Aegon is to render both of them red herrings.

A Dance with Dragons ends with her dispirited, dejectedly realizing that Meereen was never her city, and resolving to go to Westeros. But this is her lowest moment, a few books away from the future conclusion of her journey. The resolution seems as though it should be for Dany to realize that while Meereen isn't her city, the people who followed her there from Yunkai are still her people.

#daenerys targaryen #aegon vi targaryen #aegon blackfyre #asoiaf

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jeanandthedreamofhorses · 5 years ago

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You're into ASOIAF too? Oh wow. You certainly made the right call dropping this shitshow -and yeah, looking back, I didn't think it possible to have a worse season than S5 but hooo boy, was I wrong-. Knowing its abomination of an ending now, I'm trying hard not to let it ruin the books for me, too, so take this as a cautionary tale, lol. And bc some positivity would be nice and I do always enjoy reading your opinions, if it's okay, could I ask you about your fave ASOIAF characters and such? thx!

Frick yeah, the question I’ve been waiting for! I can gush about pretty much every character since they’re all so amazingly well written, but for a brief list of the top contenders… (TWOW spoilers ahead!)

5. Asha Greyjoy

“If there are rocks to starboard and a storm to port, a wise captain steers a third course.”

Irreverent, cynical, mocking, confident and dangerous, what’s not to love about Asha? She immediately made an impact with such scenes as her “sweet suckling babe” quip and was one of my favourite side characters in ACOK.

AFFC, however, was when she really got to shine, where to my elation she got a POV chapter, and more in ADWD. Despite her seemingly Ironborn-to-the-core personality, we discover she’s actually one of the least zealous of the Ironborn, sympathetic to the New Ways and those influenced by the culture of the ‘greenlanders’ like Rodrik the Reader. As one of the few reading Ironborn, she’s clearly one of the most intelligent of the Ironborn and certainly more open-minded, which leads to her down-to-earth sales pitch for the Kingsmoot, a sensible, realistic policy which would be genuinely best for her people - while still, of course, maintaining some elements of conquest: she is the kraken’s daughter, after all.

This side to her personality that sympathises with the fringe elements of her society and is able to make realistic assessments of the possibilities of success comes largely from the difficult position of being a prominent woman in the hypermasculine, heavily patriarchal Ironborn culture. Being raised as Balon’s substitute son has landed her more freedom than most Iron women, but in a complicated position nonetheless. She manages to handle it to the best of her ability, however with Balon gone she comes to realise just how precarious her position always was.

Now, like many other characters in ADWD, she is dealing with the hardship of broken dreams. Disaster piles upon disaster for Asha, from the failed kingsmoot to the loss of Deepwood Motte to becoming captive to Stannis (a dynamic I can’t wait to see more of btw, what an interesting clash of personalities!). Like Tyrion, her bravado serves to mask her insecurity, and her sense of powerlessness from recent events - both in commanding her own destiny and the heartache from the ruinous state of her family - really comes out in her inner monologue during ADWD.

How fitting, then, that this is when she reunites with Theon, another character whose lofty ambitions were torn brutally to the ground. Asha lorded it over him in Winterfell, but perhaps now she can relate. Mock as she may, Asha genuinely loves her family, and it’s another appealing aspect of this lonely character navigating her way through her unusual existence on the tightrope of social norms.

4. Tyrion Lannister

“You poor stupid blind crippled fool. Must I spell out every little thing for you? Very well. Cersei is a lying whore, she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and probably Moon Boy for all I know. And I am the monster they all say I am. Yes, I killed your vile son.”

Everyone loves Tyrion, and how can they not? He’s one of the wittiest and most intelligent characters in the series, and the first stumbling block when it comes to which side we should root for. While he was always one of my favourite characters from the start, factoring in his complex family life and struggles on account of his dwarfism (and later the maiming of his already ugly face), my favourite part of Tyrion as a character is how all the things we love about him are flipped on their head in ADWD.

Tyrion tells us in AGOT to wear your shame like “armor and it can never be used to hurt you”. It’s an empowering statement, but throughout ASOS we see how insecure Tyrion still is inside, and his ignoble treatment at the hands of his father and the people as a whole in the kangaroo court for Joffrey’s murder, can, ultimately, be boiled down to his being a dwarf. His armour fails him, and he is still utterly unable to be loved, appreciated, or respected by anyone. Only by Tysha, as he finds out, who is now lost to him - ripped from his hands by the machinations of his father and the one family member that Tyrion still loved, his brother.

It’s at this point that Tyrion is never the same again. He murders Shae in cold blood, and he murders his father, and he regrets none of it. He is becoming the monster they said he was.

When we see him in ADWD, the dark side of Tyrion that had always been hidden behind the hope he had clung onto creeps all too shockingly for the surface. His jokes are now too cynical to laugh at, dark and disturbing and cruel. He uses his intellect for no greater good beyond his own personal amusement, deliberately influencing Young Griff to attack Westeros prematurely just in the hopes that his sister might get the axe. He is on no side but his own, acting brazenly irresponsibly as he has no interest in the grand schemes others have set out for him, or even in his own life. The chips on his shoulder are now genuine murderous intent, daydreaming about raping and killing Cersei and mounting Jaime’s head on a spike next to her. Where Tyrion’s whoring habits had seemed roguish and humorous before, in Essos he is depicted raping clearly reluctant sex slaves.

What makes this all the more disturbing, and all the more literarily brilliant, is that it casts aside the biased curtain we had seen Tyrion through before, and the result is shocking. How much more free to consent is a Westerosi prostitute than a Pentoshi sex slave? How worthwhile were the barbed comments he made so frequently when they ultimately led to a litany of testimonies against him as soon as he lost his privileged position? The worse devils of Tyrion’s nature come out in full force, and we see much more of the black of the character Martin described as “the grayest of the gray”. Perhaps the difference now is that Tyrion’s POV lacks a single element of self-love. The readers are repulsed by him in the same way he repulses himself.

Nonetheless, Tyrion seems to be rekindling something of a purpose in ADWD, as characters nurture themselves back up from the wreckage in the aftermath of the War of the Five Kings. He has lost the Lannister’s golden influence, but his silver tongue still serves him well. However, we may never see the old Tyrion again. This Tyrion has not repented for the vile things he has done, or the vile things he intends to do. He was caricatured by the citizens of King’s Landing as an evil advisor whispering into the monarch’s ear - this may become something closer to the truth when he at last meets with Daenerys.

3. Jaime Lannister

“Does my lord wish to answer?” The maester asked, after a long silence. A snowflake landed on the letter. As it melted, the ink began to blur. Jaime rolled the parchment up again, as tight as one hand would allow, and handed it to Peck. “No,” he said. “Put this in the fire.”

Who saw a Jaime POV coming? What an incredible way to open ASOS after the prologue, to see things from the eyes of one of the series’ most notorious villains. I don’t think I need to explain at length how impactful it was to gently peel off the layers of Jaime’s character, revealing the true reason he killed Aerys, his growth in his interactions with Brienne, the embodiment of the chivalric values he abandoned, and most significantly, losing the hand that was his entire identity and vanity. Anyone who has read the book or watched the show can relate.

Since then, he continues to fascinate. He is discovering talents beyond swordsmanship, entering into a negotiation even Tywin could have been proud of. He has learned how to use his bad reputation for nobler ends, scaring Edmure Tully silly enough to end the siege of Riverrun without shedding a single drop of blood. He is still fighting for a Lannister king, true, but that is only staying true to his role as Kingsguard: now that he has lost his sword hand, he is discovering what it means to be a knight again, in an unconventional and thrilling way.

I chose the above quote because it captures the beauty of AFFC Jaime, breaking away from the sister he fought so hard to return to and decisively cutting out her influence for good. In Jaime’s reverse knight’s fable, refusing the call of the damsel in distress is one of the most upright things he has ever done. How fitting that he should then meet up with the woman who influenced him to take the other path - only she seems about to betray him, too…

It will be so interesting to see Stoneheart’s perverted justice on a character whose head we once wanted on a chopping block but now want to survive at all costs. I don’t think Brienne will be able to follow through with it to the end. After all, Jaime must live on to fulfil a certain prophecy…

2. Euron Greyjoy

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.”

It’s common enough to hear writers and critics talk about how your villain can’t simply be evil, and that they need to have sympathetic motivations or else they’re badly written. I think that’s true sometimes, but only when your evil villains fail to capture the raw horror of what evil really is - that’s when they feel wooden or cartoonish. To successfully capture that heart of darkness, however…

That is what George R.R. Martin achieved with Euron Greyjoy, the most terrifying character I have ever read.

Everyone underestimates Euron. They know he’s mad, but they don’t know how mad he is. They think they can outmanoeuvre him, like Asha, or betray him, like Victarion. They think he’s lying when he says he’s sailed to Valyria and means to conquer Westeros with dragons. Only Aeron knew. Only Aeron knew the depths of Euron’s depravity, and how far he means to fly. Because he’s the only one who heard the scream of the rusted iron hinge.

The Forsaken showed that it was all true, that Aeron was right all along - that he, like the oracle Cassandra, warned the Ironborn but was condemned to be ignored. Euron has an ambition unparalleled by any other character in the series - he means to turn himself into a god. He’s the only one depraved enough to go to the lengths it would take to make that dream a reality.

We should fear Euron, we should fear him very much. And yet, I think his dreams of godhood can never fully come to pass. He is, after all, still a man - still fallible, as we saw him shrink away at the Reader’s reprimand in The Reaver and change his tactics accordingly. His humanity will be the death of him - not any goodness in his heart, but a weakness common to the human creature. The dragons he means to dance with, and potentially the Others too as some theories go, will move at a pace beyond those mortal legs.

His attempt to fly will inevitably end with a fall. But that headfirst plunge will take the Seven Kingdoms with him.

1. Stannis Baratheon

“I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning… burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?“

Here is a man so totally dedicated to his duty that he is willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish it, even if it means his own destruction.

He is a character that believes in justice and the word of law more strongly than any other, and watching his dogged persistence to put a corrupt world to rights no matter the odds has always struck a chord with me, especially in this world teeming with such selfish and barbarous characters.

He is not such a performer as other characters, not as openly humorous as Tyrion (though lowkey he has an incredible dry wit), nor as pretty as Renly, nor as lighthearted as Littlefinger. He’s a dour person, hard and unpopular. But if you listen to the conversations he has with Davos, there is an incredible heart to this man who has placed all the troubles of the world on his own shoulders, and strives through cold and stormy weather to make the best, most just decision he can for no other reason than that - because it is just. Justice is hard, sharp and unyielding, not pretty, not humorous, not lighthearted - but necessary. In a king more than anywhere else. That’s why those who do follow Stannis, like Davos, follow him with such faith and loyalty.

He often proceeds about this goal in questionable ways, compensating for the imperfections of his forces and of his own personality. This is the rickety bridge Stannis walks on, as a man who will go to any means necessary to accomplish what he feels must be done. Sometimes this might mean unleashing dark forces better left locked up, sometimes it might mean committing so terrible a sin as kinslaying, sometimes it might mean sacrificing a child to awaken stone dragons - and sometimes it will mean rescuing the realm from a wildling incursion when no other king cared.

Moments like that unforgettable “STANNIS! STANNIS! STANNIS” stick so powerfully in my memory because, much like Jaime, the real virtue of this character had yet to shine so brightly as it eventually would in ASOS. Something which had always been there takes us unawares. And he is evolving, too, ever becoming more flexible, more willing to compromise, more hesitant to burnings, more dedicated to the good of the realm over himself.

And there is a whole other layer of tragic pathos that lies behind his character. Try as hard as Stannis might, and God does he try, he is not Azor Ahai, and every reader knows he will not sit the throne at the end. Even Stannis knows where this road will leave him. But he persists anyway, in the face of death. The courage of that, the self-sacrifice - how can one not be moved by it?

One of the finer points of Stannis that often goes missed in (understandably) overzealous attempts to correct the show’s butchering of his character, is that there is a part of him that does want to be king. He’s lived in Robert’s shadow his entire life, as Asha thinks to herself in ADWD, and there is a part of him that does yearn for recognition. Quotes like “Robert could piss in a cup and men would call it wine, but I offer them cold clear water and they squint in suspicion and mutter to each other about how queer it tastes.” reveal that, I think.

So this is a whole other internal battle within Stannis - he must be careful not to allow his judgement to falter against the part of him that is jealous of Robert, of Renly, that wants to be the hero Melisandre says he is. This very human aspect complicates further the already complicated war between deontological and utilitarian ethics that wages in his head, with Davos and Melisandre as their respective spokesmen. Much as he may want to be a perfect king and avatar of justice - he is still human.

The depth and tragedy of Stannis Baratheon is Shakespearean. My heart shatters in advance for the moment Stannis has made his greatest sacrifice of all to halt the advance of the Others (not the Boltons, he’ll flatten them like pancakes), and for it to do nothing, nothing at all. For him to realise he was never the hero of this story, and that now he has gathered all this blood on his hands where there is no spring to wash them in.

A man so just as Stannis could never forgive himself. But we, the readers, shall never forget the battles he fought as an axle of this universe striving to be something greater.

Honourable Mentions to Aeron, Victarion, Barristan, Jon (Snow and Connington), Cersei and Brienne. Yes, I really like the Greyjoys 🦑.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #stannis baratheon #euron greyjoy #jaime lannister #tyrion lannister #asha greyjoy #not snk

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stormcloudrising · 6 years ago

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A Match with Someone Brave, Gentle and STRONG

April 6, 2019

Ok, the title of this post is not a direct quote but if you are familiar with the books, you know the one to which I refer. However, here is the correct wording of the quote.

"Sweet one," her father said gently, "listen to me. When you're old enough, I will make you a match with a high lord who's worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and strong. This match with Joffrey was a terrible mistake. That boy is no Prince Aemon, you must believe me."

A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

Before you read much more of this brief essay, I advice you to watch this theory video by Joe Magician. I think it’s one of the best and most important fandom theories that I’ve seen in ages. In it he shows all the book evidence and comments from GRRM that points to the extinct House Strong from the Riverlands being an ancient branch of House Stark. The video is about 30 minutes but I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed in watching it all the way through. And this is true even if you are not a Jonsa stan because truthfully, the theory is that good.

youtube

There is a second companion video by Crowfood’s Daughter that discusses Ser Duncan the Tall but for now, I want to discuss what Joe Magician proposes in his video and how it my pertain to Jon and Sansa by posting some book passages. These excerpts will have greater meaning after you have watched the video and so I again advice you do so first.

Good...you’ve watched the video...hopefully! Now that you see how House Strong might have been a separated branch of House Stark, you most likely can see the additional importance of Ned using the word “strong” in his promise to Sansa. If you’re like me, you are also probably wondering if GRRM dropped any clues using the word that suggests we are meant to see Jon as the “strong” candidate who will marry Sansa. Well the answer is of course yes. There are actually quite a few book clues that point in this direction. Let’s look at some of them.

This first excerpt is from AGOT and occurs when the Lord Commander tells Jon that his father was executed in Kings Landing.

"Lady Stark is not my mother," Jon reminded him sharply. Tyrion Lannister had been a friend to him. If Lord Eddard was killed, she would be as much to blame as the queen. "My lord, what of my sisters? Arya and Sansa, they were with my father, do you know—"

"Pycelle makes no mention of them, but doubtless they'll be treated gently. I will ask about them when I write." Mormont shook his head. "This could not have happened at a worse time. If ever the realm needed a strong king … there are dark days and cold nights ahead, I feel it in my bones …" He gave Jon a long shrewd look. "I hope you are not thinking of doing anything stupid, boy."

A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

The strong king that the realm needs is of course Jon. This next passage is about Ghost after he is injured by Orrell’s Eagle on the Skirling pass.

As if in answer, Ghost struggled to his feet.

"The wolf is strong," the ranger said. "Ebben, water. Stonesnake, your skin of wine. Hold him still, Jon."

A Clash of Kings - Jon VII

As Jon himself tells us, Ghost is a part of him, which means that Jon is also part of Ghost. This fact is brought home to the reader in several ways including Melissandre’s vision Jon switching from wolf to man and back again. Mel’s vision is of course a portent of Jon’s eventual death at the hands of his men and him warging into Ghost just as he dies. The attack on Ghost by Orrel’s eagle is a similar omen as it presage the future ambush on Jon by the same bird as well as the neck wound he suffers when he is killed by his men.

Here is another instance when strong is associated with Jon and the Starks of Winterfell...this time by Maester Aemon

Grenn gave Pyp a strange look. "He doesn't know."

"Jon," said Maester Aemon, "much and more happened while you were away, and little of it good. Balon Greyjoy has crowned himself again and sent his longships against the north. Kings sprout like weeds at every hand and we have sent appeals to all of them, yet none will come. They have more pressing uses for their swords, and we are far off and forgotten. And Winterfell . . . Jon, be strong . . . Winterfell is no more . . ."

"No more?" Jon stared at Aemon's white eyes and wrinkled face. "My brothers are at Winterfell. Bran and Rickon . . ."

A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

These next three excerpts are extremely important. I make this statement because the memory of something Ned said to Jon occurs in three of his chapters and so the words obviously have had a strong (no pun intended) impact on his thinking. It’s also important because of one of Jon’s dreams that I will reference shortly.

All the same, Jon found himself hoping that Styr's fears proved well founded. If the gods are good, a patrol will chance by and put an end to this. "No wall can keep you safe," his father had told him once, as they walked the walls of Winterfall. "A wall is only as strong as the men who defend it." The wildlings might have a hundred and twenty men, but four defenders would be enough to see them off, with a few well-placed arrows and perhaps a pail of stones.

A Storm of Swords - Jon IV

"Yes." Jon Snow glanced up at the Wall, towering over them like a cliff of ice. A hundred leagues from end to end, and seven hundred feet high. The strength of the Wall was its height; the length of the Wall was its weakness. Jon remembered something his father had said once. A wall is only as strong as the men who stand behind it. The men of the Night's Watch were brave enough, but they were far too few for the task that confronted them.

A Dance with Dragons - Jon II

The raven flapped its wings. "Kill, kill."

Sigorn's father, the old Magnar, had been crushed beneath the falling stair during his attack on Castle Black. I would feel the same if someone asked me to make common cause with the Lannisters, Jon told himself. "Your father tried to kill us all," he reminded Sigorn. "The Magnar was a brave man, yet he failed. And if he had succeeded … who would hold the Wall?" He turned away from the Thenns.

"Winterfell's walls were strong as well, but Winterfell stands in ruins today, burned and broken. A wall is only as good as the men defending it."

A Dance with Dragons - Jon V

The possibility that House Strong was an ancient branch of House Stark adds additional emphasis to Ned’s words to Jon about walls needing strong men to defend. It suggests that the magic in both the great Wall and Winterfell is tied to the Starks in someway. This is an idea that has been popular in the fandom for ages but Joe Magician’s theory backs it up.

Winterfell “fell” to Theon because Bran and Rickon were still children. Bran was injured and the two had not yet grown into the “strong men” they need to be to defend their home and the realm. Things might also have been made easier for the Greyjoys because Theon is an adoptive Stark and so he can be considered an adoptive strong who instead of manning the walls, opened the doors to the enemy. The Starks/Strongs were defeated from within.

You need “strong” men to defend the great Wall and the wall of Winterfell or in other words, you need Starks to defend the walls and protect the realm. The Wall protects the realm from the Others and strong men (Starks) have defended it for thousands of years. If the Great Wall falls, Winterfell is the last major defense to stop the Others from making it to the southern part of the kingdom. The Starks defeated the Others at Winterfell during the last Long Night and the strong men manning the walls will likely have to do so again.

In a way, the duality of the Starks and their direwolves is mirrored in the Starks and the Strongs. The Starks are the Strongs and the Strongs are the Starks. This brings me to Jon’s dream that I mentioned earlier.

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. "Snow," an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard and a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she'd appeared.

The world dissolved into a red mist. Jon stabbed and slashed and cut. He hacked down Donal Noye and gutted Deaf Dick Follard. Qhorin Halfhand stumbled to his knees, trying in vain to staunch the flow of blood from his neck. "I am the Lord of Winterfell," Jon screamed. It was Robb before him now, his hair wet with melting snow. Longclaw took his head off. Then a gnarled hand seized Jon roughly by the shoulder. He whirled …

… and woke with a raven pecking at his chest. "Snow," the bird cried. Jon swatted at it. The raven shrieked its displeasure and flapped up to a bedpost to glare down balefully at him through the predawn gloom.

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XII

The word strong is not used in the passage describing Jon’s dream but it doesn’t need to be for one to see how Ned’s teachings have taken root in him. He is the last man standing but he is a Stark, which means that he is also a Strong and so even though he is alone, he will defend the Great Wall and the wall of Winterfell. Note how he also sees himself as the Lord of Winterfell defending the wall.

One of the clues that pointed Ned to the truth about Cersei and Jaime was the blond hair of their three kids as well as Jon Arryn’s last words, “the seed is Strong.” Lysa took it to mean that her husband was talking about Sweet Robin but as Ned discovered, he was talking about the Baratheons always producing black hair children...including all of Robert’s bastards.

Varamyr knew the truth of that. When he claimed the eagle that had been Orell's, he could feel the other skinchanger raging at his presence. Orell had been slain by the turncloak crow Jon Snow, and his hate for his killer had been so strong that Varamyr found himself hating the beastling boy as well. He had known what Snow was the moment he saw that great white direwolf stalking silent at his side. One skinchanger can always sense another. Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life worthy of a king. He could have done it, he did not doubt. The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it.

A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

A man’s seed is his gift to his future generations and so Varamyr’s thought that the “gift was strong in Snow,” has similar meaning to the “seed is strong.” The strong seed of Jon’s ancestors is why he and his siblings are wargs.

There are many other instances in the books where the use of the word “strong” can now be seen to have double meaning because the knowledge of this probable connection between House Strong and House Stark. And it is not just in scenes with Jon. The inferences can be seen with all of the Stark children.

Now, I’m sure that there will be those who will argue that Ned’s quote points to Gendry as the “strong” character who will marry Sansa and to that I would simply say...NO! That argument is really not worth much more discussion than NO. Yes, the phrase absolutely identifies Gendry Mya and Robert’s remaining bastards as being from his loins. However, Gendry is not a point of view character and so we only get a brief mention of his arc from Arya’s point of view. And his arc is never at anytime tied to Sansa.

The daughter of Winterfell is not going to marry a character that is basically off the pages for most of the books. She will marry an important point of view character and the one who fulfills this role and whose own arc is closely tied to Sansa over and over is Jon Snow! The End!

#jonsa #jon x sansa #house stark #house strong

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joannalannister · 6 years ago

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hi! i know u dont like the tyrion targaryen theory (understandably so), but how do you feel about tyrion having chimerism? (if u dont know what that is, it's when a person biologically has 2 fathers bc a woman had intercourse with 2 men within a short period of time, so the kid would have one mother and two fathers)

Hi! Thanks for asking me! This is a great question, and there are several things to unpack here:

the definition of chimerism and what you’re describing

the claim that Tyrion is a chimera

how this all relates to the Tyrion Targaryen theory

what this all means for Tyrion’s story as a whole

First, let’s define some terms, because what you have described is not my understanding of chimerism. I don’t claim to have extensive knowledge of biology – I’m basing my understanding on things I read in Scientific American, Time magazine, Wikipedia, etc – so if someone more knowledgable wants to correct me where I err or link me to some published scientific articles to help me learn more, it would be most appreciated.

You seem to be describing superfecundation, not chimerism. Superfecundation results in two (or more) babies, not one.

Superfecundation is the fertilization of two or more ova from the same cycle by sperm from separate acts of sexual intercourse, which can lead to two babies born at the same time from two separate biological fathers. While possible in humans, it is extremely rare, and most instances in humans occur from artificial insemination. (A technology which Westeros obviously does not have.) Superfecundation results in two babies born together who are half-siblings, meaning the two children have the same mother but two different fathers. I would like to stress that, while technically possible, superfecundity is rare in human reproduction outside of a laboratory.

Superfecundation is more common in mammals with an estrus cycle (which humans do not experience). Superfecundity is often found in cats. “Superfecundation occurs when a female mates with two or more males. One litter can potentially have multiple fathers as long as they all mate with the female in the optimum time of conception. A single kitten cannot have multiple fathers; each individual kitten in a litter has only one father.”

In cases of superfecundation, each individual has only one set of DNA.

A chimera is a person who has more than one set of DNA. The term comes from the mythical Chimera, a mythological creature that is part lioness, part goat, and part snake. Chimerism occurs in humans when:

a twin dies in utero and the surviving twin “eats” / absorbs the other’s DNA. “Most human chimeras were, at one time, twins. Current theories posit that genetic chimeras develop spontaneously when fraternal twin embryos fuse or when one twin absorbs the other. The absorption process is called Vanishing Twin Syndrome, a haunting phrase to describe the ingestion process.“ [x] In natural pregnancies (achieved without the use of IVF), Vanishing Twin Syndrome is estimated to occur in less than 0.5% of pregnancies; it is rare.

blood is exchanged by twins in utero

a person undergoes an organ transplant, such as a bone marrow transplant [x]

a woman becomes pregnant, and a small number of cells from the fetus migrate into her blood and travel to different organs [x]

the DNA of a child lost in utero is absorbed by the mother, turning her into a chimera “and invisibly altering her body into a kind of living memorial” [x]

From what I understand, you would have to combine superfecundation with Vanishing Twin syndrome to achieve the chimera situation you’re describing.

Additional articles I found interesting:

“No, women do not absorb and retain DNA from every man they have sex with“

“Here’s why ‘two-dad’ babies aren’t yet a biological reality”

Perhaps I am not looking in the right place, but the only thing I was able to find (outside of reddit) about a woman having multiple partners resulting in a chimeric pregnancy, was a theoretical discussion on a Quora forum, in which it was hypothesized that a superfecund woman had sex with two men in a very short period of time, resulting in two fertilizations (very rare), and during the pregnancy one of the twins was absorbed by the other twin (also very rare), so that the resulting baby was a chimera with two fathers.

No statistical probabilities were given, but this seems almost statistically impossible to me, even before considering this situation in a world without modern medical technology.

In Tyrion’s case … If we were to assume both (1) superfecundity and (2) Vanishing Twin Syndrome to create a very, very rare two-father chimera … shouldn’t we see some evidence of Aerys’s DNA, as well as Tywin’s?

If GRRM wanted us to figure this out, wouldn’t he make it more obvious for us? Aerys had purple eyes, while Tyrion has a black eye and a green eye. Tywin has green eyes. Aerys had silver/silver-gold hair, while Tyrion has white and black hair. Tywin doesn’t have white hair, but Tommen does. Aerys didn’t have dwarfism. Tyrion has dwarfism. Tywin has metaphorical dwarfism. To me, all this simply points to Tyrion having Tywin’s (”real” and literary) DNA.

(I mean, we’re talking about the author who referenced Olenna’s broken betrothal and “queer” right on the page in ASOS, and we were all trying to figure out for years about Olenna, and it was right there in front of us. GRRM ain’t subtle.)

So I don’t think that Tyrion is the product of superfecundity and Vanishing Twin Syndrome, both of with would need to occur in order for Tyrion to be a chimera with Aerys as one of his two fathers. Which is very unlikely.

(More on why Tyrion is not a secret Targaryen and #A plus J does not equal T)

I am not even 100% certain that Tyrion is a chimera (at least not the medical definition of a chimera). Don’t get me wrong, it’s an interesting theory: Tywin and Joanna conceive a second set of twins (and twins are common among House Lannister!), and one of those twins dies in the womb and Tyrion “eats” it (more cannibalism!) and absorbs his twin’s DNA. It puts an interesting spin on this quote:

Tyrion wondered what it would be like to have a twin, and decided that he would rather not know. Bad enough to face himself in a looking glass every day. Another him was a thought too dreadful to contemplate.

If this Vanishing Twin theory were true, it’s suggestive to me of Cain and Able, a good son and a bad one, and Tyrion has both of them inside him. But as far as ASOIAF theories go, I don’t think this is one that could ever be confirmed, save by word of God, and I’m not sure that GRRM would play into such a strict dichotomy. ASOIAF themes don’t support the idea that evil could be something (or someone) separate from oneself, something Tyrion needed to “absorb”. I think GRRM would be much more likely to say that the potential for evil is inside all of us (without the need of an evil twin) and it’s something we need to fight, constantly.

So, I mean, it’s interesting to wonder if Tyrion is a chimera!

But I don’t think he is.

The only observable characteristic I see that could possibly point to chimerism in Tyrion is his heterochromia (the difference in coloration of the irises, hair, and/or skin). And heterochromia can be caused by many things other than chimerism.

Heterochromia in infants may be caused by:

Horner’s syndrome

Sturge-Weber syndrome

Waardenburg syndrome

Hirschsprung disease

Bloch-Sulzberger syndrome

von Recklinghausen disease

Bourneville disease

Parry-Romberg syndrome

“Though multiple causes have been posited, the scientific consensus is that a lack of genetic diversity is the primary reason behind heterochromia. This is due to a mutation of the genes that determine melanin distribution at the 8-HTP pathway, which usually only become corrupted due to chromosomal homogeneity.“

Tyrion’s parents were first cousins. I mean,

Fandom: Incest causes genetic mutations! It’s bad! Won’t someone please think of the children!GRRM: Here is my favorite character, Tyrion, son of Tywin the Incestuous Blood Purity Bigot. I gave Tyrion heterochromia. Fandom: That can’t possibly be due to incest. GRRM: Maybe – just maybe – Tywin’s obsession with blood purity has really fucked his children over in more ways than one. Fandom: …nah. Tyrion is a chimera. GRRM: …is this what you all do in the years between my books?

When there are both genetic and thematic reasons to explain Tyrion’s heterochromia in the story … well, the idea that Tyrion is a chimera seems a bit overkill. It’s really not necessary to, well, other Tyrion any more than he already is. He doesn’t need all these weird and highly improbable explanations for why he is the way he is.

(I mean, Euron has heterochromia, and no one is suggesting he is a chimera or a secret targ.) (And I don’t want to know if anyone is; leave me in my ignorance please.)

In terms of how I feel about Tyrion have differently colored eyes and differently colored hair, I think it is thematic. Like his brother Jaime, caught in an identity crisis halfway down the page of the White Book, halfway between the Lannister shield and the white one … I think Tyrion is caught between the Lannister ideology of dehumanization, greed, lust etc (represented by the green eye, the white blonde hair) and his own humanity (shown to us in those moments when he designs a saddle for Bran, when he speaks up for Sansa, etc, represented by the black eye, the black hair).

(The interesting thing to me is that unlike most authors, GRRM is using black here to represent heroism and humanity, when that is traditionally represented by the color white. But black is soft, black is enveloping, like a blanket to wrap around you to save you from the icy searing white cold. "By night all banners look black")

The heterochromia is a signpost representing Tyrion’s duality, his potential to go both ways, which I talk about in detail here.

I hope that helps explain my views, and thank you again for asking!

#tyrion lannister #tyrion meta #septalemores #asoiaf meta #replies #chimera #chimerism #superfecundation #lannister thoughts #a plus j does not equal t

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cannoli-reader · 3 years ago

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Opinions about a Dragon

Another. Stronger than Tommen, gentler than Stannis, with a better claim than the girl Myrcella. A savior come from across the sea to bind up the wounds of bleeding Westeros....a dragon. A dragon with three heads.

...he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid. Tommen has been taught that kingship is his right. Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them.

We see these quotes begin and end the plotline of Aegon in “A Dance with Dragons”. Both are spoken by a member of pair of partners who have been scheming to bring him to the Iron Throne, both are addressing a Lannister, in fact, a Lannister who is in some way a stand-in for Tywin Lannister, the face of the downfall of House Targaryen. Tyrion is the son those who know them best say is most like Tywin, and Kevan is the brother who made Tywin his guiding star, followed every order and helped carry out all Tywin’s bloody work. And now Tywin is gone and the Lannister power is a spent force, and it is safe for the architects to reveal their designs to the next best thing to their primary opposition.

Each one goes on to tell his Lannister audience why their candidate for the Iron Throne is the best. They are smug and happy about what they have done and very sure of what they are saying. After all, their plans have been successful so far. Westeros is drowning in its own blood, the great alliance that brought down the Targaryen dynasty is hopelessly shattered, the heroes of the Rebellion dead or neutered. Aegon has, by all appearances, grown into everything you want in a prince, and their schemes are in the end game. The Golden Company is ready to take up the cause, allies are being prepared in Westeros itself and the first domino, Storm’s End, is falling.

Except, the funny thing is, when Illyrio makes his speech to Tyrion, we have no idea that Aegon exists, so we don’t know who he is talking about. We do know that Daenerys has three dragons, each with a head, that she is stronger than Tommen, gentler than Stannis (though those are both low enough bars to clear) and has a better claim than Myrcella (who has none, being both illegitimate and without a drop of Targaryen or Baratheon blood). Who else could Illyrio be referring to? Except Dany does not have three heads. That is the Targaryen banner that Tyrion’s host is referencing, from his earlier point in the conversation about the Westeros habit of describing nobles as the animals of their heraldry. To the extent that he is thinking about Dany at all, it is as Aegon’s bride and the means to bring her dragons back to the proper candidate. After all, it was Illyrio, Aegon’s father patron, who gave her the eggs in the first place. They rightfully belong with his protégé!

Okay, fine. We didn’t have enough information to realize what Illyrio meant. But by the time Varys puts a crossbow bolt in Tyrion’s uncle, we are absolutely sure what they mean, we know all there is to know about Aegon for the purposes of this story, and we know what Varys is thinking of when he, like his BFF earlier, tells his Lannister captive exactly why Aegon should get the throne.

Except, who was hunting Aegon? Of what do we know that he was afraid? How hungry did he really ever get? There is hungry in the sense of desiring food, that absolutely every human being has felt, because that’s why we eat and then there is hungry in that you have little or no food in your possession and no immediate prospect of getting enough for the time being without a great deal of effort, pain or danger. Did Varys and Illyrio, who packs a supply of Aegon’s favorite treats along with the necessities for his royal appearances and diplomacy, ever really let Aegon go hungry, desperately so, that he could truly understand the sufferings of the smallfolk? He was protected at all times by at least two trained warriors and no one who would have wanted him dead had any idea he existed. Varys himself was the man most likely to be tasked with finding any stray Targaryens. As with hunger, did Aegon ever really feel the fear of something great and powerful smashing up his life and taking away everything that was precious to him? Did he really ever face death except in momentary brushes through accidents or ordinary everyday danger?

And for the other part of Varys’ description, I imagine at some point Lemore or Haldon might have said the words that “kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them”, but it’s hardly the sort of message I can envision Jon Connington taking pains to inculcate into his charge. Jon is a Westeros aristocrat through and through. His stream of consciousness shows him to very much be concerned primarily with his rights. They figure a great deal into his reclamation of Griffin’s Roost, while his duty to the people who are ruled by House Connington never seems to come up. The closest thing to duty driving him is his mission with Aegon, which seems more rooted in his own infatuation with Rhaegar, and justifying his worthiness to a dead man. He certainly does not seem to appreciate Varys’ role in saving the realm by protecting and bringing forth the rightful king, rather he resents Varys’ cover story that enabled their plan, and wishes to get revenge for the damage to his own reputation. If Jon Connington is unwilling to be even temporarily known as a drunk and a thief in service to a greater cause, how likely is his ward to take to heart the principle that he himself must live for duty and for others? To Aegon’s role model, the realm is less important than his own public perception.

Of course, it could be that these things are absolutely true of Aegon. But we don’t know one way or another, because he’s never been put to the test, he’s never had to live up to those ideals.

But you know who has? Daenerys. She lost her adult guardian at a young age, and her home and had her material wealth stolen from her. She grew up in the company of a man called “the beggar king” who had to sell their last heirloom of their mother, her crown, for food. Dany recalls how traumatic that was for Viserys to the point that she refuses to part with her own gifted crown, even when she needs every commodity she can gather for her eunuch-buying ruse. As selfish as Viserys was, I can’t see him willingly undergoing that kind of humiliation and loss without a truly desperate reason. And yes, he was spoiled and probably had champagne tastes, but we see among the Dothraki that he is willing to wear out his garments, however unsuited for his activities and climate, to maintain his perceived proper appearance. Men as proud as that can endure a lot of hunger if they can hold onto an object demonstrating their royal heritage. And though she came to doubt his assertions, Dany grew up with Viserys telling her of Robert’s assassins pursuing them, resulting in their fleeing around Essos until her dearest dream is a settled home. Later, she had to endure the terror of marrying a barbarian warlord and living in the wilderness and then she faced the loss of her protector and position, and the deaths of her brother and son and the peril of the same thing happening to her. She encountered dark magic on more than one occasion and survived multiple assassination attempts.

Dany, so much more than Aegon, "knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid.” Dany proves again and again in Meereen that she lives and rules for her people, putting them first, even over her claim to the Iron Throne. She stays in an alien land, whose customs and aesthetics she dislikes, dealing with among the most evil possible human political interests, slavery, all to prevent the people she has already liberated from being enslaved again. One could argue that simply by freeing them, Dany had gone above and beyond for the people of Slaver’s Bay, and expecting more of her is beyond unfair. But no one makes that expectation except Dany herself. Time and again in this same book, she puts what she believes to be the good of her people over her own happiness or desires.

It’s ironic that Varys and Illyrio together work to deliver Tyrion, who is clearly skeptical of both their claims for Aegon, and Aegon’s qualities as a perfectly crafted king, to Daenerys. And it’s Tyrion who, even through second and third hand accounts, has managed to assemble a much better picture of Dany then even the men who plan to partner with her, one way or another.

This is what he tells Aegon.

I know that she spent her childhood in exile, impoverished, living on dreams and schemes, running from one city to the next, always fearful, never safe, friendless but for a brother who was by all accounts half-mad … a brother who sold her maidenhood to the Dothraki for the promise of an army. I know that somewhere out upon the grass her dragons hatched, and so did she. I know she is proud. How not? What else was left her but pride? I know she is strong. How not? The Dothraki despise weakness. If Daenerys had been weak, she would have perished with Viserys. I know she is fierce. Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen are proof enough of that. She has crossed the grasslands and the red waste, survived assassins and conspiracies and fell sorceries, grieved for a brother and a husband and a son, trod the cities of the slavers to dust beneath her dainty sandaled feet. Now, how do you suppose this queen will react when you turn up...?

And this is what he tells Jorah.

And how will she welcome you, this just queen? A warm embrace, a girlish titter, a headsman's axe? ... Did you truly expect me to believe you were about the queen's business in that whorehouse? Defending her from half a world away? Or could it be that you were running, that your dragon queen sent you from her side?... You hope to buy your way back into her favor by presenting her with me. An ill-considered scheme, I'd say. One might even say an act of drunken desperation. Perhaps if I were Jaime … but Jaime killed her father, I only killed my own. You think Daenerys will execute me and pardon you, but the reverse is just as likely.

In neither case is he all that wrong. Granted, he does not know what has transpired between Jorah and Dany, but she sent him away for actually betraying her, and here he is coming back, unbidden, like a stalker ex who just wants to have a reasonable discussion, just wants to be friends, whatever and thinks he can buy his way back with a gift she does not want as much as she wants to be free of someone who has hurt her. When has Dany ever said she wants revenge on the Lannisters? The only time that notion has been raised was thus:

And you do have some dogs you want dead, as I recall."

The Usurper's dogs. "Yes."

That’s Jorah diverting Dany’s moral objections to the Unsullied’s training by suggesting their utility in killing the Usurper’s Dogs, Viserys’ name for Tywin and Eddard, who Dany knows has fallen. To the extent Dany has thought about avenging herself on the Lannisters it is Jorah who put the thought in there.

The people who want Dany for their queen don’t appreciate what she wants and the people selling a Targaryen ruler based on ideal qualifications don’t appreciate how well she fits the bill.

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trinuviel · 7 years ago

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Azor Ahai, The Prince that was Promised and the Red Sword of Heroes (part 5)

This is the fifth installment in this series of posts on the subject of the prophecies of a chosen saviour in A Song of Ice and Fire. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) In part 2, 3 and 4, I came to the conclusion that Daenerys Targaryen fulfills the conditions of the prophecy of Azor Ahai reborn, which would make one of her dragons Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes. However, I do find myself skeptical when it comes to the idea that one kind of magical monster (dragons) will save the world from another kind of magical monster (White Walkers). Therefore, I am starting to doubt that Daenerys Targaryen is the promised saviour.

The figure of a prophesized savior is a common trope in fantasy fiction. Used uncritically, prophecy can easily become destiny in fantasy fiction. However, that is not the game that GRRM plays when he says that battle of Good and Evil is waged within the human heart. The hero has to choose to do the right thing! However, I’d suggest that he might go even farther. The text contains several warnings about putting your trust in prophecy. Those warnings are not just for the characters in the story but for the readers as well.

In this post, I’d like to put forth a radical suggestion: That we should distrust very nature of prophecy itself! We should ask the text whether the prophecy of Azor Ahai reborn is a promise or a warning.

Interestingly enough, the author himself has suggested that it is possible that things aren’t what they seem:

“I have always found grey characters more interesting than those who are pure black and white. […] I did not want to write another version of the War Between Good and Evil, where the antagonist is called the Foul King or the Demon Lord […] Before you can fight a war between good and evil, you need to determine which is which, and that is not always as easy as some Fantasists would have you believe.”

“Prophecy is one of those tropes of Fantasy that is fun to play with, but it can easily turn into a straightjacket if you’re not careful. One of the themes of my fiction, since the very beginning, is that the characters must make their choices, for good or ill. And making choices is hard. There are prophecies in my Seven Kingdoms, but their meanings are often murky and misleading, and they seldom offer the characters much in the way of useful guidance.” (GRRM)

WHEN PROPHECY IS A WARNING

I have come be very suspicious of the prophecy of Azor Ahai reborn for several reasons. Ironically, one of the reasons is this quote from Melisandre, who one of the most ardent believers in AA:

“If sometimes I have mistaken a warning for a prophecy or a prophecy for a warning, the fault lies in the reader, not the book.” Melisandre (ASoS, Davos V)

Through conversations with @fedonciadle, @shinynewrevulsions and @lostlittlesattelites, I have come to the conclusion that the prophecy of AA reborn could very well be a warning rather than the foretelling of a promised saviour. One of my main problems with the prophecy of AA is the fact that it is so fervently espoused by the priesthood of R’hllor. The cult of R’hllor is consistently portrayed in negative terms throughout the text, especially with its dependence upon blood magic and human sacrifice – both of which are framed negatively by the text.

"Bloodmagic is the darkest kind of sorcery. Some say it is the most powerful as well." – Lady Taena Merryweather to Cersei, (AFfC, Cersei VIII)

"Fire is a cruel way to die.” – Jon Snow to Gilly (ADwD, Jon II)

Blood magic is considered the darkest and most evil of magic, and fire is considered one of the most cruel and excruciating ways to die. Any religion that employs such practices is pretty damn evil – and therefore we should be suspicious of what kind of saviour they espouse.

Melisandre herself isn’t evil as such but she commits horrific acts in pursuit of what she deems is a higher goal. She does evil (burning people alive) in the service of what she believes is good (saving the world) – and in her view the end always justifies the means.

Stannis ground his teeth again. "I never asked for this crown. Gold is cold and heavy on the head, but so long as I am the king, I have a duty . . . If I must sacrifice one child to the flames to save a million from the dark . . . Sacrifice . . . is never easy, Davos. Or it is no true sacrifice. Tell him, my lady." Melisandre said, "Azor Ahai tempered Lightbringer with the heart's blood of his own beloved wife. If a man with a thousand cows gives one to god, that is nothing. But a man who offers the only cow he owns . . ." "She talks of cows," Davos told the king. "I am speaking of a boy, your daughter's friend, your brother's son." (ASoS, Davos VI)

Even in the myth of AA, it is an act of human sacrifice and blood magic that creates the magic weapon. One of the things that started to make me suspicious of the prophecy is Salladhor Saan’s concluding remark to Davos Seaworth after he has recounted the story of the forging of Lightbringer – and I think this quote is very important.

“Too much light can hurt the eyes, and fire burns.” (ACoK, Davos I)

FALSE LIGHT

Light is often associated with Truth on a symbolic level – and it is certainly a concept that has an important place in the cult of R’hllor. The high priest of the Red Temple in Volantis in not called the Flame of Truth and the Light of Wisdom for nothing. However, just like fire can both warm and devour, light can both illuminate and blind. In that sense, both fire and light are paradoxical as they can both be beneficial and destructive. They are both a pharmakon in the sense that they can both be a cure and a poison. The Long Night is the absence of light and fire protects against the cold. However, too much light blinds and a fire unchecked destroys.

The priesthood of R’hllor seeks the truth in the light of fire but if you stare directly into the light for too long, it blinds you. A light that is too bright overwhelms the eye and leads to temporary blindness.

Then there’s the question of a false light, which Maester Aemon brings up in relation to the glowing sword that Melisandre has given Stannis:

“…we all deceive ourselves, when we want to believe. Melisandre most of all, I think. The sword is wrong, she has to know that . . . light without heat . . . an empty glamor . . . the sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, Sam.” – Maester Aemon to Sam, (AFfC, Samwell IV)

A false light that will lead into darkness! Ironically, Aemon then decides that Daenerys Targaryen is the hope of mankind and it is possible that he is just as blind as Melisandre. Maybe he too deceives himself because he wants to believe that a promised saviour exists. It is a less frightening thought than the idea that the prophecy itself may be misleading.

Speaking of false light:

Atop the Hill of Rhaenys, the Dragonpit wore a crown of yellow fire, burning so bright it seemed as if the sun was rising. (The Princess and the Queen)

During the first Long Night, the Others were defeated in a final conflict that is called the Battle for the Dawn. While a fire may give light in the darkness, it must not be mistaken for the sun. The followers of R’hllor speak of light and darkness as absolutes but what they fail to understand is that there are different kinds of darkness. There’s the darkness of the night and the darkness of shadows. The latter come into being when something blocks a source of light. Then there’s the darkness of the earth, which is a different kind of darkness altogether:

There he sat, listening to the hoarse whispers of his teacher. “Never fear the darkness, Bran.” The lord’s words were accompanied by a faint rustling of wood and leaf, a slight twisting of his head. “The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother’s milk. Darkness will make you strong.” (The Three-Eyed Crow to Bran, ADwD, Bran III)

Notice how darkness here is described in language of protection and nourishment, and it is a darkness related to the trees and the land. It is darkness as a chthonic power; a place of dormancy for life during winter. The darkness of the earth holds the promise of life renewed and thus it is different than the darknes of the cold winter’s night, which is associated with the Others, and the darkness of shadows cast by light, which is associated with R’hllor.

DESTRUCTION THROUGH FIRE

Another quote that strengthens my suspicious against the prophecy of AA reborn is what the high priest of R’hllor preaches about Daenerys Targaryen:

“Benerro has sent forth word from Volantis. Her coming is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. From smoke and salt was she born to make the world anew. She is Azor Ahai returned… and her triumph over darkness will bring a summer that will never end… death itself will bend its knee, and all those who die fighting in her cause shall be reborn…” Haldon to Tyrion Lannister, (ADwD, Tyrion VI)

Let’s unpack this quote because there are two different things going on. If Azor Ahai reborn triumphs over the darkness, these things will happen according to the prophecy:

Eternal summer.

The faithful who die will rise again.

This actually sounds a lot more like a R’hllorist vision of the afterlife than a real, living world – and it is the product of the rigid dualism of absolute opposites that R’hllorism espouses. There is only light and darkness; the only gods are The Lord of Light and the Lord of Darkness, who have waged an eternal war since the beginning of time. If the Great Other wins, then eternal winter will reign and the dead will be resurrected by ice. If R’hllor wins, the eternal summer will reign and the faithful dead will be resurrected by fire. There is no balance in this promised future.

The other part of this quote ascribes an even greater role to AA reborn:

The promised saviour will not only defeat the darkness of the icy apocalypse but will remake the world. If AA reborn is the Champion of R’hllor and Daenerys Targaryen is AA reborn, then how will she remake the world? Through what means do the cult of R’hllor envision radical change? As always their answer is fire:

"R'hllor," Ser Godry sang, "we give you now four evil men. With glad hearts and true, we give them to your cleansing fires, that the darkness in their souls might be burned away. Let their vile flesh be seared and blackened, that their spirits might rise free and pure to ascend into the light.” (ADwD, The Sacrifice)

But if the world can only be remade through a cleansing fire, then there will be nothing left but death. The paradise that the cult of R’hllor yearns for is not of the material world but of the spirit.

The Volantene waved a hand. "In Volantis, thousands of slaves and freedmen crowd the temple plaza every night to hear Benerro shriek of bleeding stars and a sword of fire that will cleanse the world. He has been preaching that Volantis will surely burn if the triarchs take up arms against the silver queen." (ADwD, Tyrion IV)

If Daenerys is the fulfillment of the prophecy, then her burning sword is her dragons as I’ve already concluded in a previous post. The fire that will cleanse the world is dragonfire and I’d argue that this is not a good thing because what happens when the dragons come?

“When the dragons come,” he shrieked, “your flesh will burn and blister and turn to ash. Your wives will dance in gowns of fire, shrieking as they burn, lewd and naked underneath the flames. And you shall see your little children weeping, weeping till their eyes do melt and slide like jelly down their faces, till their pink flesh falls black and crackling from their bones.” (The Princess and the Queen)

These words are uttered during the Dance of the Dragons by a religious fanatic. He uses the same language as the followers of R’hllor and claims that the sins of the people of KL can only be washed out by bathing in dragon’s blood. This fevered sermon leads to the Storming of the Dragon Pit where most of the Targaryen dragons were killed. The context here is just as destructive and fanatic as when the followers of R’hllor burns people alive but he was not wrong; when dragons are used as weapons, people are devoured by fire.

You cannot build a new world by setting the old one on fire. If Daenerys is Azor Ahai reborn then she is not a saviour but a destroyer – because Dragons plant no trees! The priests of R’hllor deceive themselves and mislead their followers because:

Too much light can hurt the eyes and fire burns!

Does this mean that the prophecies of Azor Ahai Reborn and The Prince that was Promised are just a pack of lies? This issue isn’t as clear cut as truth or lie, which is something that I’ll examine in the next post where I’d like to advance a different interpretation of what Lightbringer could be.

#azor ahai #the prince that was promised #prophecies #lightbringer #dragons #daenerys targaryen #asoaif #meta #a song of ice and fire #game of thrones

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agentrouka-blog · 5 years ago

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1 So, based on your latest posts, and because you take the time to explore things that have been on my mind lately: 1 Jon-Sansa reunion is foreshadowed in Jamie-Cersei meeting at the Sept over dead Tywin and Jamie's dream of his mother. 2. T-S wedding not annulled, T will press his claim. Horrible suspicion: Sansa forgot her bedding and her PoV is completely blurred. Her next PoV is when she escapes and she thinks she should tell T about her moodblood!

2 T never once denies that he bedded her. He thinks "I am not bedded" once but that's because he wants to be chosen and S doesn't want him. He did what Tywin wanted "bed her once". He'll probably press his claim to WF based on that. In Catelyn's chapter Robb says he'll take his head off for what he did. This foreshadow comes also in Ts chapters in ADWD. Please explore Ts chapters more! Nice catch the whore-wife thing!

Oh hi, anon!

OMG, you make an excellent point! I think that GRRM planned something quite like this with the 5-year-gap he ended up having to scrap. Now it makes sense! I’ll put in some quotes below that show the hints.

It might still happen now. Obviously, not involving the actual wedding night, but as a “completely blurred” experience that involves Sansa (and probably Tyrion) at a point in the future. A point where Tyrion doesn’t care about being nice anymore. But for now, let’s look at what might have been.

Here’s where the hints come in after their wedding in ASOS:

For their wedding night, they had been granted the use of an airy bedchamber high in the Tower of the Hand. Tyrion kicked the door shut behind them. “There is a flagon of good Arbor gold on the sideboard, Sansa. Will you be so kind as to pour me a cup?” “Is that wise, my lord?” “Nothing was ever wiser. I am not truly drunk, you see. But I mean to be.” Sansa filled a goblet for each of them. It will be easier if I am drunk as well. She sat on the edge of the great curtained bed and drained half her cup in three long swallows. No doubt it was very fine wine, but she was too nervous to taste it. It made her head swim.

They both drink a wine that Tyrion has provided for them. Arbor Gold, he says. A different chapter with Shae suggests something else.

“We should go back,” he said reluctantly. “It must be near dawn. Sansa will be waking.” “You should give her dreamwine,” Shae said, “like Lady Tanda does with Lollys. A cup before she goes to sleep, and we could fuck in bed beside her without her waking.” She giggled. “Maybe we should, some night. Would m’lord like that?” Her hand found his shoulder, and began to knead the muscles there. “Your neck is hard as stone. What troubles you?”

Tyrion could not see his fingers in front of his face, but he ticked his woes off on them all the same. “My wife. (…) He had come to his last finger. “The face that stares back out of the water when I wash.”(ASOS, Tyrion)

She mentions the dreamwine and he gets tense as a stone, the thought of his wife troubles him and he can’t stand the look of his own face. Hmmm… (That last one is also a Tysha hint, but I digress.)

The pivotal moment at the wedding night:

She climbed onto the featherbed, conscious of his stare. A scented beeswax candle burned on the bedside table and rose petals had been strewn between the sheets. She had started to pull up a blanket to cover herself when she heard him say, “No.”

The cold made her shiver, but she obeyed. Her eyes closed, and she waited. After a moment she heard the sound of her husband pulling off his boots, and the rustle of clothing as he undressed himself. When he hopped up on the bed and put his hand on her breast, Sansa could not help but shudder. She lay with her eyes closed, every muscle tense, dreading what might come next. Would he touch her again? Kiss her? Should she open her legs for him now? She did not know what was expected of her.

“Sansa.” The hand was gone. “Open your eyes.” She had promised to obey; she opened her eyes. He was sitting by her feet, naked. Where his legs joined, his man’s staff poked up stiff and hard from a thicket of coarse yellow hair, but it was the only thing about him that was straight. “My lady,” Tyrion said, “you are lovely, make no mistake, but … I cannot do this. My father be damned. We will wait. The turn of a moon, a year, a season, however long it takes. Until you have come to know me better, and perhaps to trust me a little.” His smile might have been meant to be reassuring, but without a nose it only made him look more grotesque and sinister. (ASOS, Sansa)

This feels rewritten, doesn’t it? The sudden break, the sudden reprieve. It could just be Tyrion’s creeping conscience making him change his mind. Or it could be Sansa’s mind rewriting the moment. As the series stands now, it can be both. But this issue between them is so heavily referenced that it will have to come up again in the future, one way or the other. It was always meant to be important.

This is at the end of the wedding night chapter:

“On my honor as a Lannister,” the Imp said, “I will not touch you until you want me to.” It took all the courage that was in her to look in those mismatched eyes and say, “And if I never want you to, my lord?” His mouth jerked as if she had slapped him. “Never?” Her neck was so tight she could scarcely nod. “Why,” he said, “that is why the gods made whores for imps like me.” He closed his short blunt fingers into a fist, and climbed down off the bed. (ASOS, Sansa)

That’s some violent imagery for a kindly refusal to rape her, isn’t it? We all know what Lannister honor is worth (a bucket of…) and we see that Tyrion does feel entitled to her, or he wouldn’t react with dismay at her suggestion that she may never want him.

The chapter is followed by an Arya chapter describing Stoney Sept, the Battle of the Bells, and this comes up quickly:

More recent battles had been fought here as well, Arya thought from the look of the place. The town gates were made of raw new wood; outside the walls a pile of charred planks remained to tell what had happened to the old ones.

(…)

“When the westermen came through they raped the Huntsman’s wife and sister, put his crops to the torch, ate half his sheep, and killed the other half for spite. Killed six dogs too, and threw the carcasses down his well. A chewed-up corpse would be plenty good enough for him, I’d say. Me as well.” (ASOS, Arya)

Tyrion used that ugly “smash your portcullis” metaphor just in the chapter before. That’s not subtle.

Let’s look at two angles at Sansa’s POV, keeping in mind the dreamwine. One of the biggest hints that something bad happened (or will happen) to Sansa is in a TWOW sample chapter, “Mercy”. Arya will be “raped” by a dwarf on stage, in a play that’s about the Purple Wedding. Mercy is likely to play Sansa’s character.

She had fastened the shutters back so the morning sun might wake her. But there was no sun outside the window of Mercy's little room, only a wall of shifting grey fog. The air had grown chilly... and a good thing, else she might have slept all day. It would be just like Mercy to sleep through her own rape. Gooseprickles covered her legs. Her coverlet had twisted around her like a snake. She unwound it, threw the blanket to the bare plank floor and padded naked to the window. Braavos was lost in fog. (TWOW, Mercy)

The Tyrion chapter with Shae and the dreamwine is followed directly by a Sansa chapter that opens thusly:

She threw back the coverlets. I must be brave. Her torments would soon be ended, one way or the other. If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now.

Her lord husband was not beside her, but she was used to that. (ASOS, Sansa)

If only dreaming could make everyone safe and warm.

So, why would this have happened? Because Jesus-Jon Snow Needs a Virgin Mother Mary Magdalene.

Like many other female characters, Sansa is surrounded by biblical Mary imagery. “Lys”, in fact, is French for “lily”, the virginal flower that represents the Virgin Mary and, as a city name in Essos, the den of high-end prostitutes. Look for “lys”, it’s everywhere. Madonna-Whore is one of the biggest themes in the books, right next to the light and dark messiah represented by Dany and Jon. Sansa is currently still heavy on the “Maiden” aspect, but that was going to change. But with a twist. Mary is, after all, a virgin mother.

A woman who doesn’t remember having been raped is still a virgin, yes?

Starting in Sansa’s “sweet dream” chapter, we get a barrage of pregnancy and bastard allusions all through Sansa’s arrival at the Fingers, along with lots of food symbolism. She has a fluttery “tummy”, she can’t eat. After her Escape, she arrives by ship nauseated and is offered fruit by Littlefinger. She rejects the pomegranate, i.e. marriage to Hades, she rejects the blood orange, i.e. wrathful revenge, but she chooses the pear, i.e. the virgin Mary AND child.

So, Virgin Mary and the bastard child. Or, as the world would call her: the whore.

More hints with Lysa:

As Sansa stepped back, Lady Lysa caught her wrist. “Now tell me,” she said sharply. “Are you with child? The truth now, I will know if you lie.” “No,” she said, startled by the question. “You are a woman flowered, are you not?” “Yes.” Sansa knew the truth of her flowering could not be long hidden in the Eyrie. “Tyrion didn’t … he never …” She could feel the blush creeping up her cheeks. “I am still a maid.” “Was the dwarf incapable?” “No. He was only … he was …” Kind? She could not say that, not here, not to this aunt who hated him so. “He … he had whores, my lady. He told me so.”

So Tyrion “had” a whore. And Sansa has repressed the memory, making her a maiden in her own mind. But a maiden with child.

Littlefinger would have loved it, apparently.

I always anticipated that she would beggar the realm and destroy herself, but I never expected she would do it quite so fast. It is quite vexing. I had hoped to have four or five quiet years to plant some seeds and allow some fruits to ripen, but now … it is a good thing that I thrive on chaos. (AFFC, Alayne)

Thanks for the self-insert, GRRM.

There are plenty of allusions in all the chapters to rape, protective walls (around people’s hearts) and Jon, in particular, climbing walls, pregnancy, childbirth, Trauma, etc etc etc.

Tyrion’s first chapter after their wedding opens like this:

Nothing remained beyond the King’s Gate but mud and ashes and bits of burned bone, yet already there were people living in the shadow of the city walls, and others selling fish from barrows and barrels. (ASOS, Tyrion)

To make it short: “Wall” is a code for Sansa. There are people living in the shadow of the wall after a gate was destroyed. Hmm.

His marriage was a daily agony. Sansa Stark remained a maiden, and half the castle seemed to know it. When they had saddled up this morning, he’d heard two of the stableboys sniggering behind his back. He could almost imagine that the horses were sniggering as well. He’d risked his skin to avoid the bedding ritual, hoping to preserve the privacy of his bedchamber, but that hope had been dashed quick enough. Either Sansa had been stupid enough to confide in one of her bedmaids, every one of whom was a spy for Cersei, or Varys and his little birds were to blame. (ASOS, Tyrion)

This is the only snag in the theory. Tyrion corroborates Sansa’s version of events. Or so it seems. Maybe Tyrion also misremembers. Which fits with his Tysha repression. There not being a “bloody sheet” is a mystery, though, for another day. There’s a Tyrion scene with Shae in AGOT or ACOK where he, ahem, barely manages to “storm the castle” before he finishes. It may have played like that. If it did. We don’t know.

It doesn’t matter now. But anyway.

Another hint when Catelyn arrives at the Twins for the Red Wedding, describing Lord Walder Frey:

His chair was black oak, its back carved into the semblance of two stout towers joined by an arched bridge, so massive that its embrace turned the old man into a grotesque child. There was something of the vulture about Lord Walder, and rather more of the weasel. His bald head, spotted with age, thrust out from his scrawny shoulders on a long pink neck. Loose skin dangled beneath his receding chin, his eyes were runny and clouded, and his toothless mouth moved constantly, sucking at the empty air as a babe sucks at his mother’s breast. (ASOS, Catelyn)

My suspicion on what would have eventually happened to that bastard:

What does he want me to say? “That is good to know, my lord.” He wanted something from her, but Sansa did not know what it was. He looks like a starving child, but I have no food to give him. Why won’t he leave me be? Tyrion rubbed at his scarred, scabby nose yet again, an ugly habit that drew the eye to his ugly face. “You have never asked me how Robb died, or your lady mother.” “I … would sooner not know. It would give me bad dreams.” “Then I will say no more.” “That … that’s kind of you.” “Oh, yes,” said Tyrion. “I am the very soul of kindness. And I know about bad dreams.” (ASOS, Sansa)

Children starving in the winter is something we heard from Old Nan.

“The Others,” Old Nan agreed. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.” Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, “So, child. This is the sort of story you like?”

I’m not sure if this would have happened, but there is plenty of precedence of decent young mothers suffering horribly: Helaena Targaryen, Elia Martell, countless unnamed civilians, even Gilly and her two rabbits that Ghost killed.

At this point, of course, it doesn’t matter because it happened differently. Since GRRM had to scrap the 5-year-gap for being unworkable, this plan had to change. Sansa has been in the Vale for way long enough to be certain that pregnancy, at least, is not a factor. This theoretical Lannister baby is a scrap in the bin.

Whether he will pick up this thread directly (by possibly even repeating it when the un-annulled marriage becomes a factor again) or transfer some of this onto Sansa’s storyline by another character, Sansa remains officially a maiden and will most probably become pregnant at some point in a way that recalls the Virgin Mary. It may straight up be Jon’s baby at this point, what with the time constraints. Not remembering is certaintly something that will come up between them. Or it may have either an uncertain or a more sinister “source”.

It’s going to be interesting!

Either way, thank you so much for the ask, it really inspired me!

#asoiaf speculation #asoiaf #sansa stark #Tyrion Lannister #rape #asks #my posts

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