#and say he’s prophecy-obsessed and a rapist

[the-lake-lily-alchemist]

Dany’s vision of Rhaegar in the HotU

So, I want to beat an already dead and over-beaten horse, and talk a bit about Dany’s vision of Rhaegar in the House of the Undying.

Now, I want to preface it by saying that I know this subject has been talked about thousands of times and it’s boring and tiring to talk about the same shit over and over again, but I just saw “Rhaegar is a prophecy-obsessed groomer/rapist” discourse on my twitter feed and thought I’d toss my two cents in.

Firstly, let’s look a bit at this vision as it appears in the books, shall we?

Viserys, was her first thought the next time she paused, but a second glance told her otherwise. The man had her brother’s hair, but he was taller, and his eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac. “Aegon,” he said to a woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. “What better name for a king?”

As we can see here, Dany, on her quest to find her children, stumbles upon this little moment long past. The text tells us that the three people shown here are Rhaegar, his wife Elia, and their son Aegon.

“Will you make a song for him?” the woman asked.

���He has a song,” the man replied. “He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.” He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany’s, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door.

This passage specifically has been interpreted numerous times. The text tells us that Rhaegar thought that his son, Aegon, was The Prince that was Promised. However, Rhaegar looks up when he says the prophecy, and looks directly at Dany, as if talking to her.

This to me reads as not-very-subtly being told the answer to the prophecy. Dany is TPTWP, as the author tells us through vision-Rhaegar. Thus, she is made aware of the prophecy, part of which we can find in the title of the book series.

I’ve seen the theory that Rhaegar seeing Dany was a time-space continuum bubble, of the present looking at the past, or, for Rhaegar, the present glimpsing at the future. How I see it, however, is that when he says those fateful words, and looks up to meet his sister’s eyes, he becomes both the gods’ and the author’s channel to make Dany and the reader aware of the answer to the prophecy. He sceases to be just a vision of the past and becomes the gods’/R’hllor’s voice, informing Dany. He tells her about the PTWP prophecy, because she is TPTWP!

Thus, when he continues with this,

“There must be one more,” he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. “The dragon has three heads.”

we can infer that he’s saying this to Dany, because the gods want her to know this (and the author wants us to know this).

Mind you, these are visions, not just excerpts from the past/present/future. The conversation as it’s shown might not have taken place exactly like this, if it ever did. With how abrupt the cut from Rhaegar saying this to him going and playing the harp, I think he’s never said those words himself. Again, I believe that, in that moment (given that “There must be one more” and “The dragon has three heads” do not tie at all with the PTWP prophecy), it’s the gods using this vision of him to tell Dany (and the reader) an important message.

I shall say it one more time, just to be perfectly clear: IT’S NOT RHAEGAR TALKING ABOUT THE THREE HEADS AND A THIRD CHILD, IT’S THE GODS!

“There must be one more”, because Rhaegar has three children, not just two. Dany is fated to meet Rhaegar’s third child (and very probably fall in love and marry said third child, but that’s another overly-beaten, dead horse), and we as readers have been getting clues about who this child is since book one.

In no passage is it stated or implied that Rhaegar sought to have another child. He doesn’t go on and say, “When the maester has cleared you, we shall try for a third.” or “Because you can’t get pregnant again, I shall look for another woman to bear my third child.” The theory that he wanted another one, presumably a girl, to name her Visenya, is just that, a fan theory.

“The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I can trust, if I can flnd them. I will not be alone then. We will be three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.” (ASOS, Dany VI)

It’s clear (or it should be) that “the dragon has three heads” it’s specifically for Dany to know that there are two people out there whom she can trust and with whom she shall stand “against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.”

It’s not about Rhaegar thinking that his children are “the three heads of the dragon”. It’s about Dany. You would think it’s obvious given that it’s her chapter, but whatever.

[queen-morgana91]

Why do you think grrm is "pro Rhaegar"?

I mean, because he's serving cunt in life and in death lol

Jokes aside, he's a central figure in the books. Many characters are still obsessing over him 20 years after his death, he was so beautiful that Cersei (!) gave a fleet to a guy just because he almost looked like him.

Two viewpoint characters are in love with him (Cersei and JonCon). Other three idolized/respected him (Dany, Jaime and Barristan)

Ned, another viewpoint character, compared Robert and Rhaegar and ROBERT come out lacking (against the guy who "kidnapped and raped" his sister, basically)

Jaime calls him "King" and says Robert was no true King.

Wyman Manderly says Rhaegar Frey is a smirking worm “with a dragon’s name" (he was offended lol)

Daenerys is compared multiple times to him in a positive way

And look at what happened to the rebellion's leaders. Robert was butchered by a pig, Tywin was Killed by his own son while shitting, Jon Arryn was poisoned by his wife…..and the guy who died as a warrior (and with a tragic poetic death) was Rhaegar lol

"Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name.”

Annnd……he wasn't a rapist. Lyanna and Rhaegar's relationship was consensual, as i've said here

He wasn't perfect or a hero, no. Nobody is perfect in this series. "The human heart in conflict with itself" and "Love is death of duty" very much defines Rhaegar. The struggle between his marriage to Elia and love for Lyanna, his conflict with his father, the prophecy and the threat of the Others. He couldn’t anticipated that the Lannisters would betray his father, or that his wife and children would both be killed.

He made mistakes like....99% of asoiaf characters. He's a conflicted character with flaws and virtues.

He wasn't the "spawn of Satan" like many people want to believe. GRRM will never acknowledge the nonsensical fandom headcanons and he's not gonna change his books.

So yeah, he’s 100% pro-Rhaegar and the fandom will get a rude awakening with the next books

[aegor-bamfsteel]

To bounce back on the other anon, I have to say that the reason I didn't like the adaptation aspect of hotd is that they whitewashed the two characters from that time period I disliked the most from the book, namely aemond and rhaenyra.

Fans parrot "but the show made the greens much more sympathetic" but this is true for alicent and aemond only and rather than being sympathetic it's more that they're a lot less villainous and gained niche fans because they're pretty hated by the majority of the audience from what I see. But beyond that, the adaptation choices of the screenwriters are so strange. If you wanted to have sympathetic (or whatever that means) characters among the greens, it's much easier to acheive that with aegon, heleana and daeron whose terrible traits mostly come into action after the start of the war.

Have the first be a lazy hedonist nonetheless quite innofensive and disinterested in power, the second a joyful princess who is popular with the smallfolk thanks to her kindness and the third a dutiful nice boy with chivalric ideals. Boom, there you have your sympathetic greens without having to alter the story at all. It would have made the three's eventual downfall into cruelty or madness during the dance much more poignant if they used to be likable too. Instead aegon is a loathsome sadistic serial rapist, helaena a weirdo who barely has any lines and daeron was scrapped from this season. And aemond, the bloodthirsty psychopath who was described as fierce from birth and called his half sister a whore after learning of their father's death, has been turned into a poor meow meow who didn't mean it. As for rhaenyra, her whole personality was revamped, her bad actions erased and she was given a righteous purpose in the form of a prophecy to make her a daenerys lite.

Just imagine if in the first season of got d&d had tyrion as a mix of ramsay bolton and rorge, sansa as a ditz who is mainly here to look pretty in the background and not have jaime appear onscreen nor his existence being mentioned by his own family while turning cersei into a benevolent and peaceful noble queen and joffrey into a misunderstood brooding bad boy (now I'm not saying those characters are identical to the five children of viserys but they share similar archetypes and it's just a broad comparison anyway). Maybe the show would have been popular with the mainstream like hotd currently is but d&d would have faced a backlash from book readers way sooner than they did.

Although it is very convenient for the screenwriters that they can justify any change or stupid adaptational choice with "the book is biased" or "the book is an untrustworthy historical account". Then why even adapt it if everything written is false or made up ?

In the end, though I admit it's petty of me, I cannot completely enjoy this adaptation when the characters I disliked the most during my readings are glorified and the few I liked (+ Aegon who I didn't like but could've been more interesting) are not exploited at all. At least Daemon hasn't been whitewashed yet so that's a small win I guess ?

Thanks for your commentary about the show. I agree with a lot of what you said about the Green children’s characterization. I hated how they portrayed Helaena, since it’s clear they had no idea what to do with her; they gave her dragon dreams and insect obsession and sensitivity from scratch, making her unrecognizable from the brave, pleasant mother who put her own life over those of her children, and who was so beloved by the smallfolk they rioted when they believed she was murdered. You’re also right about Aegon and how he was given the worst possible interpretation to the point it’s impossible to sympathize with him since he’s a rapist and enjoys watching children beat each other; whereas Rhaenyra—who is supposed to be about as bad as he is (that’s the point of the conflict? The realm is suffering because these worthless rulers want their chair?), gets her horrible actions removed (feeding Vaemond’s corpse to her dragon) and some diplomatic ones added (she never wanted to betrothe Jace/Helaena, and she flat out refused peace with “Tell my half brother that I will have my throne, or I will have his head.”). Then Daeron gets mentioned once and isn’t going to be seen until Season 2, when the whole point of him is he’s a decent, humble kid who allows his vengeance for his nephew burn a town. Aemond is Daemon’s foil in the novella (they even want to strangle a messenger that gives them bad news), a fierce somewhat dashing fighter with no morals, he’s where sympathy should not be. I agree with you that your take on the characters would’ve been more faithful and complement the themes of the story. Really, most characters were in need of a rewrite.

I had no idea HOTD was popular in the mainstream—the reviews I read indicated that it was a massive step down from early GOT—but I have been relying on Songify The News for my pop culture knowledge, so what do I know. Why adapt it? Because it looks cool. Everyone loves dragons…except the people who get they’re dangerous weapons and give their riders an unhealthy amount of power and entitlement over others, but who cares about us? The after episode commentary—including the infamous comment of “It’s GOT—civilians don’t count”—indicate they’re going for big spectacle rather than carefully written characters and plot (not that the novella had that), while disrespecting some of the core themes of ASOIAF. It’s the opposite of writing I like tbh.

I’d say you’re not being petty, because these seem like reasonable criticisms of the characterization/writing, though Seven knows I’ve been petty before in this fandom. Who knows what they’re going to do with Daemon next season (we have Blood and Cheese’s confrontation of Helaena to consider, and it’s building up to be a Mysaria vs Otto conflict about the smallfolk. They’ve taken away all of Helaena’s good moments like mothering her kids sassing Aegon and pleading mercy for Orwyle; why not her defining character moment where she proves herself to be Best Targ of the Generation)? They did take away some of his comeuppance and brutality, at the expense of adapting an interesting character this season who could’ve served as foil for Rhaenyra and Alicent, Lady Jeyne Arryn.

[lemonhemlock]

what do you think about lyanna stark?

Short answer is that I roll my eyes like Cersei, as in "not this fucking girl again".

Long answer is that I can't get a proper feel on Lyanna as a character because we are missing vital information about her. I am SO curious about a lot of things that happened surrounding her, but as far as her personality is concerned I'm kind of .... whelmed? Not over-, not under-... she is just there, IDK. On the one hand, I get the Mary Sue vibes that make me want to roll my eyes as above, but, on the other hand, I know I'm being a little mean and her story is more complex than that.

She is the third child out of four. 14/15-year-old Lyanna has received enough training that she is able to scare off the three squires who were bullying Howland Reed and defeat them in a tourney under disguise (seriously? I am internally groaning just typing that out). She is so kind-hearted that she takes him in, knows how to take care of his wounds, is lively and spirited that she can withstand her brothers teasing her no problem, is moved by poetry enough that she cries at Rhaegar's sad song and is so beautiful and impressive that she catches the prince's eye and he becomes fixated on her.

Robert also has a life-long obsession with her, although, realistically-speaking, he must have seen her how many times in his life? She was so young during all of this, half a child herself. There's a creepy element to all of this. Despite her young age, the text makes a point in telling us how perceptive Lyanna was, since she did not consider Robert good husband material because of his philandering ways (she somehow already knows about his bastard daughter in the Vale). In some such way, she is more attuned to this than Ned, who was both older and knew Robert better.

But then there are so many questions that arise. Her problem was Robert's cheating, yet she "falls in love" and "runs away" with Rhaegar, a married man? How much of a willing participant was she in all this story? How much of Rhaegar's plans and knowledge of prophecy did he impart on her? In the TV adaptation, they show them getting married, but even so, that is a bullshit wedding since polygamy is outlawed in Westeros. How could such a ceremony be considered legal in these conditions? How could Jon not be a bastard? What freaking sellout Septon did Rhaegar conjure up in order to perform this? She is a Helen of Troy figure and her story with Rhaegar is often presented as a romance, but at a deeper glance, her relationship with him becomes very shady.

Ned is deeply traumatized by what happened to his sister, naturally, and regardless of her level of complicity, her story is a tragedy. Her father and her brother die horrific deaths trying to get her back, her other brother is in life-threatening danger because of the war her baby daddy / potential rapist started. She dies giving birth to Jon - the details are very blurry, it's hard to say whether she dies because she was too young to give birth or because she had other birth complications that could have occurred at any age or because she didn't receive proper medical care since she was so isolated. Did she even have a maester with her? Midwives? Staff? Ned's fever dreams make it seem like she was just with those three Kingsguard dudes. How did Rhaegar even convince these people, who are supposed to be honourable knights, to help him abscond with Lyanna and then keep her own brother from seeing her ON HER DEATHBED? Lord Commander Gerold Hightower, THE Sword of the Morning Arthur Dayne, whom Jaime idolizes - what happened here? How much of this information did Lyanna even have access to? Did she know what was happening with the war, with her family? I doubt she would have been okay with any of that.

[apollos-forgotten-flower-bf]

(Sorry in advance wolfy, this is a pjo rant, and as well as the people reading this; I'm not exactly great with words but I'm trying)

I came across this again after looking through my own account and while it has been months I would like to branch off of this by the mention of her appearance in pjo and as well as hoo;

In the Sea of Monsters, we see Percy go through the same challenges as Odysseus in the Odyssey; Polyphemus, Scylla, Charybdis, the sirens, as well as Circe (another character classifiable as a rapist.)

My big problem with this is how in pjo, we see Circe as a villainized obstacle for Percy, while when Calypso makes her appearance first in BoTL, it is another instance in which we, the readers, as well as the MC (being Percy, then later Leo) are meant to sympathize with her, just like Epic, and pretty much any other thing relating to the story of Calypso. Lonely, stuck on an island for thousands of years, cursed to fall in love but never have it returned. While she is also, alongside Circe, someone who could very well be villainized just the same, if not for her appearing as more 'gentle and weak'.

Now, I'm not saying I expect Riordan to include mentions of rape in a CHILDREN'S BOOK. That's honestly the last thing I want, EVER. But I find it kind of ridiculous to have these two (Circe and Calypso) both be written into this story, even as minor characters, with one being seen as a villain and the other as a love interest. Really???

And, ignoring the whole Calypso-is-a-rapist thing, it's still fucking creepy. Because Calypso is canonically (within the Riordanverse specifically) OLDER THAN APOLLO [mentioned in ToA book 2, the Dark Prophecy]. And she's dating a 15 year old (Leo)???

"But Ogygia is in a time warp like the Lotus Casino so she's actually 15 too🥺" nuh uh. It has never said that, only that the passage of time is difficult to calculate due to Ogygia being such remote island. She is still chronologically and mentally older than Leo. And also she just sucks as a girlfriend. While (a point from a now taken-down tiktok by @/comet_fire, what I originally had started this rant in the comment section of,) Nico had not aged physically, mentally, emotionally — anything besides chronologically whilst in the casino. He was 10 when he went in, 10 when he was out.

Anyways, what I think would have made not only the story but the lesson taught within the books better should have been you don't need a romantic interest to be valued. This is something I think could've worked really well, especially with Leo's character; obsessed with girls, constantly feeling left out by his friends, the 'third wheel', 'seventh wheel', all that. Instead of landing on Calypso's island and falling in love with her, he could have learned that just because he isn't romantically involved doesn't mean that he isn't worth love, be it platonic or romantic. He could have learned, while also teaching the readers, that being in love shouldn't define who you are, and that there is just as much value in friendships and self-love as there is in dating. Hell, you wouldn't even need Calypso to be involved at all.

Unfortunately, it's painfully obvious that Riordan himself fails to understand that with how the relationships and books are written...like, seriously. Even Tyson — who was supposed to be a baby cyclops iirc — ends up with a love interest. Are you kidding me??? And, while I'm not extremely vocal with my general dislike towards Riordan, this is a big factor as to why; he is way too invested with the romances in his stories to bother with developing any other relationships. I could write a whole separate rant on that later.

TL;DR, Riordan sucks at writing anything besides romance, Calypso is a mythologically 'canon' rapist and is a pointless love interest + overall character in the Riordanverse, and I hate caleo.

Once again, sorry if this is all over the place, I hope I got my point across well enough.

May I ask what you don’t like about the Calypso song snippets?

Love in paradise is fine, it comes across creepy enough and you can tell Odysseus doesn't want to be there.

I'm not sorry for loving you is a bit iffy to me. You can sort of tell there's meant to be a gaslighting sort of undertone to it but that's only if you've read the Odyssey/know the story. The comments on the snippets are full of people who sympathize Calypso and go "omg poor Calypso 💔". I also am very wary of the line "I love you, but not in the way you want to" which I Get might be him trying to placate her, but according to the snippet it's like a last word kind of thing. Like he says it and then he leaves, Calypso singing after him in despair. So it doesn't really feel placating, more like a confession

I get that he might not want to make the musical as dark, which is perfectly fair, (and it probably won't come across well to a modern audience that hey. All the enemies he comes across on his journey are either monsters, gods, or evil magic women) but well. Calypso is Very much a rapist and it feels weird to have her be viewed as sympathetic by so much of the fan base. (This is also my problem with her pjo)

[crazyopinionatedwriterchick]

genuine question but do you really think rhaegar loved lyanna? didnt you read he was obsessed with the prophecy, the dragon has three heads, and he wanted the 'visenya' to his aegon and rhaenys? thats why he kidnaped and raped lyanna, bc elia couldnt have another child

Rhaegar could have ignored the maesters like countless men before him and had another child by her.

If he wanted to recreate the original three heads that’s what he would have done because Visenya, Aegon, and Rhaenys were full blooded siblings.

Yes, I read that he cared about the prophecy, but nowhere in the prophecy does it say that there must be three of them or that there is even a dragon at all. Taking the prophecy as a fixed thing as well as Rhaegar’s opinions on it seems like a mistake. We don’t know enough to say that he hadn’t found something that changed his mind. The only thing we know for sure is that there is a prince, he was promised, and he will be born beneath a bleeding star admits salt and smoke.

It was a Maester Aemon’s belief that the dragon had three heads. In fact Azor Ahai and TPTWP may not even be connected at all.

Also Note: His is the song of ice and fire. Does that sound like a child of a Martell and a Targaryen?

I do believe Rhaegar loved Lyanna. I also believe that history is written by the victors; Robert won. His version of events was spread as the truth.

So no I don’t believe Lyanna was kidnapped and raped. I think Ned is the litmus test for what really happens with Rhagar and Lyanna. Ask yourself wouldn’t he have held a lot more contempt for Rhaegar and the Targaryens if she had been? The only thing Ned has to say about Rhaegar is he didn’t seem the type of man to frequent brothels. So on some level he believed Rhaegar had honor. That wouldn’t be the case if he were a prophecy obsessed rapist.

[bamf-jaskier]

MWAH @ your Fringilla fic idea that's a genius set of tags and you're incredibly powerful for having put it out there

I am SO HAPPY that someone is showing interest in this idea, I might actually turn this into a proper fanfic but here is the idea I am currently working with:

Kingdom Reverse AU

So Yennefer comes into the Ballroom, looking absolutely gorgeous and goes up to the King of Aedirn 

And then Yennefer goes up to King Virfuril and asks him for a dance but there is one key difference: She introduces herself as simply Yennefer and not Yennefer of Vengerberg

The King politely accepts her request but keeps Fringilla on as his mage despite the fact that she is not Aedirnian, it’s not like he has other options

and Yennefer angrily goes off to be the mage of Nilfgaard and let me tell you, she is NOT happy at the current state of affairs. She gathers an army and overthrows the Usurper and Emhyr tries to install himself on the throne but Yennefer is not having that and she ends up taking over Nilfgaard herself and becoming the empress

Emhyr would stay on as a close advisor 

remember, this is not a version of Yennefer who spent decades underfoot as a court mage, this is a young Yennefer who will do literally anything to prove her own worth and is full of this anger that she hasn’t learned how to control yet

Unlike Fringilla, who would rather be the shadow behind the throne, Yennefer craves for recognition and power and wouldn’t have any moral issues taking the throne for herself. 

Meanwhile, in Aedirn, Fringilla is extremely unhappy there. The King resents her and while she is one of the most powerful graduates of  Aretuza she ends up doing the same thing Yennefer originally did: helping murderers and rapists keep a throne they don’t deserve

However, unlike Yennefer, Fringilla doesn’t see a point in staying where she clearly isn’t wanted. One night, she simply lets an assassin slip through and sneaks out of the palace as the people decry the Queen’s death 

Fringilla has never sought out power but rather knowledge and she is impulsive but also courageous, so what she do with her extra time?

she goes adventuring, seeking out lost knowledge and tomes deep within  the hidden parts of the continent

Fringilla is one of the most powerful mages on the continent and Tissaia seeks her out just like she did to Yennefer to try and bring her back but Fringilla refuses, she is experimenting with magics may would consider forbidden and has a growing resentment towards the Brotherhood

I’m willing to bet that in this universe, Fringilla has met plenty of Witchers in her time, where monsters are there is often hidden knowledge and she definitely crosses paths with them on the path

meanwhile, Yennefer is focusing on building her empire in Nilfgaard. She works on dismantling the authoritarian regime and focusing instead on cooperative policies for the people, a lot of her policies are influenced by her own painful childhood so she works to alleviate the suffering of the people

Fringilla becomes known as a traveling mage, helpful when you are in a bind but also known for powerful and secretive magics. One day she is working on capturing a Djinn to study when the experiment grows out of control and she is saved by Geralt of Rivia 

Fringilla bonds with this Witcher and his traveling companion and ends up occasionally traveling with them 

Jaskier would enjoy the discussions on obscure magic and use them as inspiration, maybe trying to fight the propaganda of the Brotherhood along the way 

Geralt would like the adventurous nature Fringilla has and he would respect a mage that broke from the brotherhood 

Nilfgaard wouldn’t attack Cintra, but Emhyr would still hold an obsession with Cirilla, the Lioness of Cintra

He would gather a small militia to try and take her from the palace that ends up causing a coup in Cintra, leading to Calanthe’s death and Ciri going on the run from Emhyr

Ciri finds Geralt and he takes her to Kaer Morhen but they have to leave once the Winter is over and they find their way to Nilfgaard with the help of Fringilla and Jaskier

Over the past few decades, the country has become increasingly isolationist and refuses to partake in the land struggles many other Kingdoms do

Geralt and Ciri head to the palace, asking for sanctuary and that’s when they meet the Empress, Yennefer 

With Fringilla’s backing, Yennefer allows them to stay 

Fringilla and Yennefer have a long talk and in the end Yennefer says that going to Nilfgaard was a good decision in the end, and Fringilla jokes that Aedirn sucked anyways and they bond over their mutual dislike of the Brotherhood 

As a cliffhanger for this little AU Yennefer then asks for Fringilla’s help with a worrying prophecy she’s heard: The White Frost and she thinks it refers to Cirilla 

Let me know what you think, is anyone interested in this enough for me to turn it into a fanfic? Do u want more headcanons about characters or specific ideas about this AU? Any pairings you think would work in this AU? 

[haljathefangirlcat]

DARK FINALE SPOILERS

what she says: I'm fine

what she means: ... and another thing! you know how I didn't ship jonas and martha in season one because I didn't feel like she was there for anything in particular besides adding some spicy surprise incest romantic drama and showing us that even with the child murders and timetravel shenaningans, everyone was still just people and even the dumb teen who'd just met himself was still just a dumb teen getting in a scuffle with his ex-best friend over some girl? and how in season two I thought they had some very touching moments but still didn't ship them because I thought it was just about jonas desperately clinging to something as simple and pure as a school crush as his life kept crushing and burning and going to hell before his eyes no matter what he did, and oh, of course she died and became ever purer and more perfect in his mind through the years until it became some sort of obsession for his lost, fridged love... and THEN alt!martha appeared out of nowhere and I had no fucking idea what to think anymore??? and then in season three it was her and her world and her problems and her feelings and her building, spiraling trauma and Eva and her capacity for selfishness and evil while calling them the right thing and the solution - and at the beginning I didn't think I'd feel for her as I'd always felt for jonas, but I did - and I thought I finally understood what the point of them together was, because they were this epic tragic fated "there is a LITERAL red string in here" love story of mirrors and shadows and crossroads and circles, right? theseus as the minotaur and ariadne as the snake goddess, the eternal struggle and love between death/life and dark/light but they were both doomed whether they held out hands or slapped them away, whether they became saviors or destroyers, right? and i liked THAT, i liked it a lot but I still didn't ship them because I wanted more and that still felt classic, still felt expected, still didn't give me the hope I needed and I somehow trusted the writers to give me - because they were still the chosen, fated child-heroes, even when scarred and darkened after venturing into the forest and going through the cave to a new land and facing their wolves, and that didn't feel right for this story... and in the end, it wasn't. It wasn't a story about fate and what was right according to it. It was a story about two mistakes, about glitches in the matrix, about things that were a perfectly matched pair (don't ever believe otherwise) because they were both wrong, they were both false. and it couldn't be anything else. because how could fate REALLY choose to dump its whole weight on the shoulders of two kids and hurt them over and over again like that, and NOT expect them to become THAT? How could that be fair or even just right?? Of course worlds running on that kind of logic couldn't be saved. of course the one person who could look past the addicting epic tragic binaries would be someone who didn't have the best childhood and teen years but at least got to reach adulthood and develop some measure of maturity/common sense/bullshit-radar without anyone just dumping a heap of prophecies and death and light and darkness and hell and paradise on her head before things started to go to shit on her side of the story. and yet....... there's a tragic, cruel irony in jonas & martha being the crux and fulcrum of all that's wrong in their worlds - the worst and most unnatural things to ever exist in worlds filled with child murderers and murderers/identity thieves and abusive parents/spouses and rapists and cheaters and Hannah "Don't mind me, I'm just here to blackmail Aleksander into ruining people" Kahnwald and god knows what else. Like... my boy Jonas, who just wanted to save his dad and the girl he loved. My girl Martha, who just wanted to save her family and the boy she loved. and yet. In the end they see it. And they accept it. And while still holding onto each other, while finally reaching out and truly honestly meeting again as Adam and Eva (as old Jonas and old Martha, stripped of destiny and all pretense), they finally let go. And they become stardust as the space-time continuum heals its wounds and ulcers, as all the broken homes repair themselves because the first is whole again (because this story was always about parents and children and the ghosts they haunt each other with), as all they ever did is forgotten and forgiven like in that paradise that wasn't even supposed to be real. and it's scary and it's sad but they love each other and they go together, perfect pair that they are, and they are at peace. and it works, and they make things right like they kept making things wrong. and of course - NOW I love them, and it's far too late. but the world is whole and healed now, and it may never be perfect (would it really BE Winden, after all, if no one ever had any reason to wish for the apocalypse? ... could it REALLY be perfect, with all the unnatural, corrupted people that loved and were loved and don't and can't exist anymore but maybe are still missed anyway?) but maybe it will be kinder. fairer. grateful in its own way. less tragic but maybe still just a tiny little bit epic or fairytale-like. so until baran and jantje come up and explain that last "jonas" as just nostalgia for a lost world, as the only possible tribute and reward and consolation like it's probably meant to be... and maybe even after that... I'll hope they'll meet again one day. And that day, maybe it will be right...

what she does: *trying her best not to cry as she watches the cat eat because sometimes he just likes some company while he munches away, y'know?*

[seolhe]

I was wondering,,, why do you say the dark wife is one of the worst books you've read? I read it a few years ago, and I dont remember anything about it tbh, so I'm curious

Oh boy, where do I start? I had a lot of problems with this novel, both as a Greek myth retelling and from a writing standpoint. Now, keep in mind that I read thisabout 2 years ago, so I might be forgetting some small details here and there, but I’ll try to explain the main reasons it bugged me so much. So buckle up, because this is gonna be a long one.

Characters: All the characters are two-dimensional and poorly developed. None of them have any amount of nuance or depth.Zeus is moustache twirling villain who is evil for the sake of being evil. Hades is as good as Zeus is evil, endlessly noble and selfless and devoted. I genuinely can’t remember a single defining trait of Persephone? She’s such abland and generic protagonist, nothing really stands out about her in my memory other than her obsessive pining over Hades and hatred of Zeus. A lot of this feels like it’s pulled straight from the shallow and occasionally downright inaccurate readings of Greek myths that have become so popular in recent years, especially on places like tumblr (Zeus as an evil rapist, Hades as a pure cinnamon roll, Persephone descending willingly into the Underworld, etc.).But there are also more confusing takes on these characters, like turning chaste virgin goddess Athena into a self-centered, promiscuous lesbian (not to say that being a lesbian or being promiscuous is bad, it’s just such a strange interpretation of Athena’s character that doesn’t make any sense)And don’t even get me started on poor Charis! Charis, Persephone’s first lover in the book, exists solely to be raped and killed by Zeus. She’s fridged to show us that Zeus is BAD and giving Persephone a reason to hate him. The author’s treatment of this character is lazy and offensive. I’m sure this is something that won’t bother all readers, but as someone with a deep love for the mythology, I found the portrayal of the Greek gods franklyinsulting. Plot:“Three thousand years ago, a god told a lie.”Here we run into a big problem with the narrative. We’re told from the very prologue that the story of Hades and Persephone we’re familiar with is a lie, a narrative created by Zeus, and this is Persephone’s attempt to set the record straight.These are the first lines of our story: “I am not my mother’s daughter. I have forfeited my inheritance, my birthright. I do not possess the privilege of truth. The stories told by fires, the myth of my kidnap and my rape, are all that remain of me. Forever I will be known as the girl who was stolen away to be the wife of Hades, lord of all the dead. Andnone of it is true, or is so fragmented that the truth is nothing more than ashadow, malformed. The stories are wrong. I am not who they say I am.I am Persephone, and my story must begin with the truth.Here it is, or as close as I can tell it.”Well, this doesn’t really make any sense when, at the end of the story, Zeus is defeated and thrown into Tartarus. Why does this narrative survive into modern day when Hades and Persephone won? Why is Persephone only able to tell her story now, after thousands of years without Zeus in power? Speaking of Zeus and lies, the justification for the whole “What, Hades is awoman?!” thing really doesn’t make any sense. We’re told that Zeus calls Hades “lord” of the dead as a joke, Hades even refers to it as a “slur” in the story. The reason given for this is that Hades is only attracted to women. Well, if that’s the case, why doesn’t that same logic apply to Athena, who’salso shown to be attracted only to women? Or to Persephone for that matter? Same-sex attraction, even between women, is never shown to be frowned upon in their society, so why would Zeus single out Hades for her attraction to women? And why do all the other gods apparently go along with that “joke” to the point that Persephone literally didn’t know Hades was a woman until she meets her in person? And why, again, did this idea of Hades being a man survive into modern day? The story is constructed so poorly on so many different levels. There are so many threads that are just dropped entirely. For example:- The story starts with Demeter confidently proclaiming that Persephone will become the queen of the gods, setting up this big rivalry between her and the daughters of Hera and Aphrodite. This plot never goes anywhere, in fact, I don’t think it’s ever brought up again after the first chapter, and Demeter basically spends the rest of the book cowering before Zeus. - There’s a significant plotline about Pallas having Persephone try to deliver a message to Athena, a plotline that is unceremoniously dropped without anyresolution. After all the build-up, there’s a throwaway line about Pallas giving the note to Persephone right before the big showdown with Zeus, and that’s the last we hear of it. We never see it delivered, we don’t get to see Athena’s reaction to it, we don’t know how this impacts Pallas, if at all. In fact, Pallas basically doesn’t show up at all after this point. Then there’s the main conflict of the story: Zeus wants Persephone, and as we’re told over and over and over, Zeus always gets what he wants (the author really beats this into our heads). We’re never really given any motivation for any of Zeus’ actions, so this conflict feels weak and contrived. It doesn’t help that we get so much build-up for what a terrible threat he is, and then Persephone defeats Zeus, the most powerful god, feared by all, in like… two pages? It’s such a weak and anticlimactic end to the story.

There was also some sort of convoluted plan concocted by Zeus to, idk, have the dead rise up and overthrow Hades? For some reason? Again, we never get any clear motivation from Zeus. As far as I can remember, we’re never told why he hates Hades so much, or why he wants to overthrow her. I don’t even remember if the author explained what Zeus was going to do with the Underworld without Hades there to rule. I’m sorry, I genuinely can’t even remember the details, but it was just reallybadly set up and, once again, easily solved in a few pages.And that’s really the main problem with the story, everything is so easily solved. Our good guys all get happily ever afters with no sacrifices and no consequences for anything, and there’s always a quick and easy solution to any threat or conflict. Mythology:So how does it hold up as a Hades and Persephone retelling?Well, not great, imho. A lot of classical elements are incorporated into this retelling, but they’re stripped of any meaning or importance to the plot. The pomegranate? It’s there at their wedding, but it never figures into the greater narrative.Demeter causing famine by bringing infertility to the fields? She does freeze the world in this story, threatening everlasting winter, but unlike in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, it’s not an act of agency on her part, refusing to submit to the will of Zeus and fighting to be reunited with her daughter. Nah. She’s just being manipulated by Zeus and it’s used as a cheap reason to tear our lovers apart.And somehow, I don’t even know why seeing as it doesn’t tie into Demeter freezing the earth or Persephone eating the seeds of the pomegranate, butPersephone is still forced to spend half the year on earth and half in theUnderworld.In the epilogue, we see her in modern day New York*, acting as psychopomp (for some reason???), happily guiding the souls to the afterlife, which we’re told is her duty for the half of the year she spends above ground. I’m just so confused as to what the author was even going for here. Where did this come from? It doesn’t originate in the original myths, but it’s also not explained (as far as I can remember) in the book.*This isn’t a problem with the book per se, and it’s 100% a matter oftaste, but I personally really dislike it when mythological figures appearin a modern setting, especially when the author has to put them in anAmerican setting rather than the geographical location of their origin, whetherthat’s Greece or Egypt or Scandinavia or what have you. Romance: Hades and Persephone are destined soulmates and instantly fall in love pretty much the moment they first set eyes on each other, which doesn’t allow for any growth or progression of their relationship. They’re instantly deeply and madly in love with each other and their feelings never change over the span of the story. They spend most of their time together staring lovingly into each others eyes and when they’re separated for literally 3 days Persephone basically spends her entire days languishing in despair.It’s ridiculously melodramatic and cheesy, which again, personal taste thing,I’m just really not into. Other writing issues: - The worldbuilding is pretty much non-existent. The story doesn’t feel grounded in any particular time period or cultural context, and you never get any sense of the setting, or how the world works and what this society is like.  - The pacing was really poor, either dragging or exploding into rushed action. - A lot of page time is spent on describing things that doesn’t really further the plot or has any thematic relevance. One example would be the garden of metal and precious stones Hades made for Persephone. It’s cool I guess? But what purpose does it serve? We also waste a lot of time which could be better used developing the characters or moving the plot forward on watching Persephone play with puppy Cerberus or petting Hades’ horses (see poor pacing). - There’s a lot of talk about Persephone having some sort of grand destiny, and that her actions have been prophesized. This is never properly explained and it only serves to weaken Persephone’s story arc, stripping her of agency by implying that she doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. Prophecy and destiny are story elements that have to be handled delicately and are easy to screw up, and they’re just dealt with so clumsily here.  - Also the writing was just… not very good.I’m sure there are more things I could dig up and complain about, but I feel like this is probably too long and rambly already, so I’ll stop here.

Obligatory disclaimer:This is obviously just my personal opinion. There are a lot of people who love this book (going by Goodreads ratings, I am clearly in the minority) and I am genuinely happy for them! I also mean no disrespect to the author who seems like a genuinely lovely person. 

[ansheofthevalley]

I’ve seen a few “book enthusiasts” seriously believe that Dany will burn down KL and then find redemption in the battle against the dead later on. And during the battle of Winterfell, Dany, Jon and Tyrion will each ride a dragon. I’m sorry, but that entire thing sounds very silly to me. How could she possibly be redeemed after killing hundreds of thousands of people at once? And Tyrion? (a pretty vile book character) will be a “hero” at Winterfell? What?! Is any of this strange to you too?

Hi nonny! I’ll devide the ask in two parts. 

But to answer your question, no, I don’t find it strange. Simply because Jon, Daenerys and Tyrion are three of the most popular characters of the saga (if not the three most popular). But being the most popular doesn’t mean they’ll have a hero’s journey or that they’ll end up being the heroes in the end (especially in Dany and Tyrion’s case).

Dany’s redemption

I’ve seen this theory float around. But from what I’ve seen, I think it leans more on the redemptive death trope. Think Darth Vader in the third act of Return of the Jedi. So let’s say that Dany burns KL. After doing so, she has some sort of epiphany about how she turned out to be the very thing she was fighting against. And to even the scales a bit, she does something selfless: she goes North to fight the Others without expecting anything in return. But since she commited mass murder and no act that bad can go unpunished, she dies for the greater good, thus “earning” redemption. I think the theory goes like that or at least that’s my interpretation of it.

Thematically, Dany’s arc parallels the history of her ancestors. The Targaryens (and the Velaryons) fled Valyria (an empire built with fire, blood and slaves) before the Doom (a natural disaster that might have some connection to magic destroying the largest empire in the known world in a single day). Years later, Aegon began his conquest of Westeros with his sisters and their dragons (Fire and Blood). The Targaryen dynasty ruled for 300 years with dragons and the famous Targaryen Exceptionalism to keep everyone in check. But the Targaryen dynasty ended with Robert’s Rebellion. Only two Targaryens survived (three if you count Jon). Targaryen history is deeply linked with hubris. Every time they’re set on building an empire, it ultimately ends up badly for them, either by a supernatural cause or by human conflict. In terms of narrative, Dany has links to the history of both the Valyria of old and the Targaryen dynasty. That’s why I think her end in the books will be similar to the Valyrians/Targaryens, only that her end will be a bit of both: her arc is about conquering, it’s political, but it’s also magical because of her dragons. So the conflict that might end up in her death could start as a war (the westerosi lords resisting her rule), but when (I say when because it’s practically a given she’ll burn KL) she burns KL with her dragons, it could somehow parallel the Doom. 

In a general sense, ASOIAF’s ending will be the same as GOT’s. So that means Dany will die. It’s the how that we still don’t know. I don’t think Jon will actually kill her in the books (I have my thoughts on how Dany’s death scene played out but I won’t get into them since it will be a lot and that’s not what you asked, nonny). I believe she will die when she burns KL. Fire cannot kill a dragon, but wildfire might...

Daenerys, Jon and Tyrion as the three dragonriders

This theory is very popular and one of the first ones from the fandom, if I’m correct. It connects to the whole “the dragon must have three heads” speech. A lot of people that believe in this theory also believe in the “Tyrion is Aerys’ bastard” theory. It’s basically about Targaryen Exceptionalism.

I personally don’t believe in the theory for a number of reasons. 

First of all, it’s been confirmed (from a Doylist POV) what the Song of Ice and Fire means: Ice and Fire are the threats Westeros face from north of the Wall (in the form of the Others) and from the far east in Essos (in the form of Daenerys and her dragons), respectively. Still talking from a Doylist POV, I don’t see how one of the threats can be absolute evil while the other can be conceived as “good”. That certainly happens from a Watsonian POV. That’s why Daenerys and House Targaryen as a whole are so popular. The threat they represent is oftentimes veiled, hidden behind POV traps and the very well crafted notion of Targaryen Exceptionalism.

Secondly, I don’t believe there will be any other dragonriders apart from Dany, except maybe for f!Aegon and Jon. The thing about dragonriders is that 1) they rely on bonding with the dragon and 2) most of the time (but not always) only a Targaryen could ride them. So, it’s not like you could just hop on and go for a ride. Take the Dance of the Dragons, for example. The Dragonseeds (Non-Targaryen dragonriders) were baseborn people. But even the dragonseeds are questioned, some believing them to have valyrian ancestry. That was the whole thing about Targaryens committing incest, so they could be the only ones to control the dragons.

Thirdly, and going back to my first argument, the dragons are not perceived as a good force of nature. Quite the opposite, actually. GRRM has referred to them time and time again as WMD. GRRM has said that the dragons represent power, but the power they represent is not the kind you build upon. The dragons represent destructive power.

Lastly, the “three heads of the dragon” are tied to TPTWP prophecy and as we know, prophecies are not what they seem in the world of ASOIAF. From a Watsonian POV, they can be tricky because characters involved with prophecy make important (sometimes game-changing) choices based on their interpretations of certain prophecies. And those interpretations turn up to be wrong or inconclusive because prophecies are not as straight-forward as the characters believe. From a Doylist POV, prophecies can be used as a device to make the characters make a fatal error which ends in their undoing. Rhaegar is a perfect example of Hamartia in ASOIAF. He was obsessed with TPTWP prophecy. He was convinced that the Promised Prince would come from his line. So, when he married Elia Martell, he was dead set on having three kids: TPTWP and two more that would help him, since “the dragon must have three heads” (again, Targaryen Exceptionalism). Since Elia wasn’t healthy enough to give Rhaegar a third child, he kidnapped Lyanna Stark and raped her (yes, I’m saying he raped her since she was 14/15 years old and he was a grown-ass adult, thus making it statutory rape, even if she gave consent) so he could get the third head of the dragon. As we all know, this is the reason why Rickard and Brandon Stark went to KL, where the Mad King killed them both and demanded the heads of Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon, thus initiating Robert’s Rebellion and ultimately ending the Targaryen dynasty. All the choices Rhaegar made, he made them while having the prophecy in mind. All those choices led to his death, the death of his family and the end of Targaryen rule in Westeros. All of this could be considered a fatal error if we keep in mind that Rhaegar could’ve been wrong about TPTWP prophecy. And Rhaegar is just one of many, many characters connected to this prophecy. In the present, you have Daenerys and Stannis as the two clearest examples of characters that might be going down Rhaegar’s path.

As for Tyrion, there’s just no way he’ll end up being a hero. People just assume that because they see show!Tyrion as a(n overall) faithful adaptation of his book counterpart, which is simply not true, like, at all. Book!Tyrion is a rapist, a sexual molester and vicious. He’s a very dark character, always after what’s best for himself. GRRM himself has described him as a villain. So no, Tyrion won’t be a hero in the books. He won’t be the voice of reason. Like, show!Tyrion from s4 to s8? Don’t expect him to appear in the books, simply because that’s not how GRRM writes him.

Thanks for the ask!

[aish-rai]

Daenerys Targaryen was not the “Mad Queen”. And probably never will be.

The saying “Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin” is used to explain away every Targaryen misdeed or heroic act. The assumption is that, after centuries of inbreeding, “madness” (an incredibly vague term that really does nothing to describe someone’s mental state and therefore makes it difficult to distinguish between insanity and greatness) is inherited genetically. There’s no proof that this is true for the Targaryens, and especially not for Dany.

The northerners have their wargs, yet no one would call them insane for claiming they can take over someone or something else’s body. The Targaryens have their own kind of magic: dragon dreams. Dragon dreams are premonition-like dreams that often involve dragons, but not always. Like all prophecies, these dreams are not simple to interpret. Aerion Targaryen drank wildfire believing it would turn him into a dragon: clearly madness, right? Except that it was dragon dreams that led to Dany walking into the fire, leading to the hatching of her three dragons. If she had burnt to a crisp, they would have called her mad, but because she correctly interpreted her dragon dreams, she becomes the Mother of Dragons. Madness, it seems, all depends on the outcome of taking a risk.

In ASOIAF, it’s clearly Cersei who is the “Mad” Queen. Her behavior is partially a result of her circumstances and the abuses she’s endured, yes, but she was never of sound mental health. She murders her best friend as a child out of jealousy/a perceived threat to her relationship with Jaime. She loves Jaime and her children only insofar as they are an extension of herself. The irony is that, in rebelling against the Mad King, the realm still ends up with a Mad Queen in power, one with a lifelong history of sociopathic tendencies and even an obsession with wildfire. She enjoys hurting people, does not recognize the interior lives of others, and is unrepentant.

So that brings us back to Dany. Dany shows no signs of mental illness. She’s a good person who spent her childhood being abused by her brother and chased by assassins, only to be sold to a warlord and raped nightly. Her only defense is to adapt to her situation and find ways to gain the upper hand. She can behave ruthlessly, but she agonizes over every decision and despairs at harming innocents. When we leave her in the books, it seems she understands that she cannot go on compromising, and that innocents will have to die in order for her to achieve her goals. Innocents are ALREADY dying. Westeros is at war. She believes that if she joins the fray, she has the power to bring peace. Here’s where it gets tricky, because we’ve run out of books, so in order to justify her turn as the “Mad Queen” we have to go back and completely reframe her actions and intentions throughout the show. “She’s killed thousands of people!” Well, yes, she’s killed rapists and murderers. Ned Stark, arguably the most honorable character in the series, enters the story by decapitating a scared deserter of the Night’s Watch. Jon hangs a literal child. Tyrion, who is SO opposed to dragonfire at the end of the series, had no qualms about blowing up the Baratheon army with wildfire during the Battle of the Blackwater. Arya literally baked potentially innocent men into a pie and fed it to their father. Killing people has never been an issue in this series; but of ALL the characters, Daenerys seems the most justified in her actions, because the people she shows mercy to are the oppressed and those at the receiving end of her wrath are irredeemably bad people. You can argue she makes these choices to be loved, and perhaps that’s true, but her actions often go against her own best interests. Staying in Meereen to rule does nothing to benefit her. Helping the North, who pays her absolute dust for saving their asses, does not benefit her either; she could have stayed on Dragonstone. But she agreed to help WITHOUT Jon kneeling to her, which came later. She consistently makes decisions to help others that only hurt her cause. She listens to advisors who give her shit advice, and then conspire behind her back which makes her rightfully angry. The idea that she was always a horrible tyrant has no contextual backing, or at least, no more so than it does for any other character.

So here’s the crux of the argument: Dany is not mad. She’s not mentally ill, she’s not completely irrational, she’s not paranoid (her instances of supposed paranoia ALL turn out to be justified). The more interesting conversation here is, How much loss and pain can a good person withstand before they crack? She loses two of her children, her closest advisor, her best friend, and her lover, and for what? To save a people who hate her for no reason. What are you even fighting for at that point? When do you finally say, Okay, I’ll give you a fucking reason to hate me? That’s not mental illness, that’s humanity.

We can all agree the last season is shit, but my point in writing this is that it does a HUGE disservice to these characters to chalk every bad or even morally grey act up to mental illness, something they’ve inherited and can’t escape. Without dragon dreams, would Aerion Targaryen have gone mad and died for it? Without a long imprisonment at Duskendale and then Varys in his ear fueling his paranoia, would the Mad King have gone mad at all, or even just to the extent that he did? Guess we’ll never know. And if Dany hadn’t lost literally everything she cared about after clawing her way out of her chains, would she have snapped? No reason to think so. Instead of arguing over whether someone was destined for madness, it’s so much more interesting to explore what grief, loss, abuse, and isolation can do to a person.

Also, it’s awfully convenient to call an ambitious woman crazy. Then you don’t have to think about any of these things, you can just chalk it up to genetics and emotional instability and do no critical thinking whatsoever. That way, I guess you can feel better about taking them out back and putting them down like Old Yeller.

Soooo my question is, what type of mental illness did Dany suffer from? Can anyone be any more specific? Or is this sometimes the price we pay for what we put others through until they can no longer play by the rules of society? Because THEN we can talk about the men in ASOIAF/GOT purposely destabilizing the women and then insisting they’re not fit to rule. Kind of like real life.

[moonlitgleek]

ramzesfics reblogged your post and added:

[....] where did the idea of having the option to safely say “no” go? Someone thinks that Elia actually could safely say “no” to the man who decided that this was the only night he had to fuck her in? (Remember, this night was very important to him, else he would have tried again before and after.) But this possibility isn’t even mentioned. The entire awfulness of the situation is waved away with a tentative, “MAY be utterly callous… it does interfere with her consent”… Makes me wonder where the callousness is. If Elia was this willing, Rhaegar is not callous at all. It was her choice, after all. Her risk to take.

Earth to fandom: a consent interfered with is not a consent freely given. Amazing, I know, but this is a concept that doesn’t only apply to cutely wilful wolf-blooded girls of fifteen, it also applies to until recently bedridden Dornish princesses who almost certainly knew that waiting for a mere month or two vastly improved their chances of going through pregnancy successfully but had prophecy obsessed husbands. For the record, I also wouldn’t call Rhaegar a rapist. Elia most certainly thought it was her wifely duty. But it sure as hell falls under the definition of “a little rapey”, like many things in GRRM’s world.

I’ll choose to ignore the blatant hostile and condescending tone you use throughout your reply in favor of addressing your points. But perhaps next time you might think of toning that down. Your points can be easily made without talking down to me like that, and less hostility makes for a more productive discussion instead of a shouting match.

Anyway.

I clearly said that Elia’s consent is interfered with. I clearly said that it isn’t a healthy situation. My point is that calling it rape, or a bit rapey which is essentially the same thing, puts Rhaegar as the perpetrator and the one responsible for that which I don’t agree with. The problem with Elia’s consent, in my interpretation, is that the sociopolitical culture of Westeros inherently undermines free consent. That stands true for most Westerosi marriages. It’s a society whose politics and power structure is maintained through arranged marriage which doesn’t really bother with clear and free consent. It commodifies highborn individuals, especially women, as pawns to be used to gain alliances, political power, status, economic privileges, etc. It engenders a significant power disparity between genders which translates to men having inordinate power over their wives, which is then exacerbated by the societal pressure it places women under by holding them to a rigid structure of conduct. Society says that providing sex to their husbands is a duty, that bearing and rearing children is a duty, that giving access to their very bodies is. a. duty. On top of that, it makes it that their political legacy and power is intrinsically tied to their children. Outside of ruling ladies, noble women maintain power through their children so having children seizes to be only a thing they are taught is their duty, and quite literally becomes a way of securing the mother’s place. In a society where women are subject to men’s power and whims, that is an important objective.

All that makes consent a mess. That’s what the make-up of Westerosi society does; it removes true sexual agency from people. That stands especially true for women, particularly those in certain ranks where providing children becomes a political obligation. That absolutely interferes with consent so I can see where it can be called rape. My problem comes from the fact that we’d be basically calling pretty much every marriage in Westeros rape that way, because consent is interfered with everywhere. So is Ned the same as Robert? Is Stannis the same as Aerys? Is the consent issues the same? I can’t say that. Which is why I draw a line between “yes, there is an issue with consent here but that doesn’t makes this person a rapist” and “someone is clearly and deliberately ignoring consent and/or creating a situation where consent can’t be given”. Rhaegar/Elia are in the first category, Rhaegar/Lyanna in the second. I hesitate to draw parallels between them, and it’s not because Lyanna is white and Elia isn’t.

It’s because that while I think that Elia’s consent is interfered with because she is under pressure; this pressure didn’t necessarily come from Rhaegar’s person. You have a valid point in criticizing me for not allowing a margin of error because yes, it is possible that Rhaegar himself pressured Elia because there was a comet in the sky this specific night (though I’m not sure where your confidence that this was the only night of intercourse between Rhaegar and Elia comes from). My interpretation differs, partly because I don’t see any instance where Martin hints that the situation isn’t what it appears to be, partly because I’m almost certain that this is an example of his inability to math and that he just didn’t notice that having Elia bedridden for six months after Rhaenys’ birth but having Rhaenys and Aegon born in two successive years when Rhaenys couldn’t have been possibly born any earlier than late 280 leaves a very small window for Aegon’s conception. The author’s doylist math challenges should not overwhelm in-universe explanations but it lends a useful frame in light of the lack of additional evidence. So my point is that while Elia’s consent is interfered with, it’s not necessarily Rhaegar who caused that interference and thus should be blamed for it. Which the original ask does.

In terms of the comparison between Elia and Lyanna, I don’t parallel them because their ability to consent isn’t the same. On account of age alone, there is a whole lot of difference to what Elia could hypothetically consent to as a 25-year-old and what Lyanna could consent to as a 14-year-old. Elia can consent to sex with Rhaegar, Lyanna can not. It is not possible. The situation is drastically different as well; it’s possible that Rhaegar pressured Elia but it’s just as possible that Elia agreed willingly (and I hear what you say about the dangers this could pose to her fertility and don’t disagree. But Martin has eschewed that logic way too many times for me not to see this as a solid possibility.) Rhaegar held power over both Elia and Lyanna that could be used to coerce, that’s true, but Elia’s ability to say yes to her husband with whom she has a comparable maturity level and rank, in their home, with a loyal retinue in the vicinity is starkly different from Lyanna’s ability to say yes when she has none of that. That does not mean that Elia couldn’t be coerced, but the two situations are not comparable. In Lyanna’s case, Rhaegar created the situation that prevented Lyanna’s consent to be valid or free. He deliberately perpetuated a chain of events that left her at a disadvantage, isolated and completely vulnerable to the crown prince and three loyal Kingsguard. Rhaegar himself unambiguously interfered with Lyanna’s consent. The difference here is that there is a possibility for Elia to consent, but that isn’t true for Lyanna.

Finally, I admit I’m a bit confused. You say that you also wouldn’t call Rhaegar a rapist for this. You concur that Elia probably thought it was her wifely duty. So the issue seems to be that you think I brushed away the awfulness of the situation. Except.... do I need to point out that a woman feeling it’s her duty to provide children for her husband or to secure herself is fucked up? Sometimes I do spell it out. But sometimes I rely on the fact that people reading don’t need me to tell them that’s not right. I acknowledge that it’s not a healthy situation. I acknowledge that Elia’s consent is suspect. There are consent issues but I don’t call it rape because I blame Westerosi mores that wreaks havoc with consent on the best of days. So I haven’t ignored the awfulness of the situation as much as that you think my word choice makes it too tentative. But at the same time you refer to me saying “Elia might” in my post as “a long post why this woman had almost certainly decided it was the best idea ever, her saving grace!”. Okay?

[moiraineswife]

Why do you hate Tyrion?

Oh, where do I begin :’)  You do not know what you have Unleashed, nonnie (this is all going to be book based, and I’ll probably forget some stuff, BUT THERE’S ENOUGH IN MY HEAD TO FUEL THE FIRES OF MY RAGE) 

Short version: 

He’s arrogant, selfish, self-obsessed, self-pitying, and utterly without conscience or morals, he’s deeply misogynistic, a rapist, a killer, and he refuses to acknowledge his own flaws and shortcomings. 

Long version: 

-Even as early as AGOT he’s doing things that benefit him, and only him, without a single thought/care towards the consequences (because it’s not as though he isn’t intelligent enough to figure them out) eg: arming the mountain clans of the Vale which causes untold destruction and pain for the locals when they return with the weapons and armour he gave them as the price for his own skin. 

-Tyrion’s POVs are incredibly well written and constructed. A reader is inclined to view him as he views himself: an essentially good creature, who tries hard, and is halted and punished by the world for things he can’t help. Which...is not entirely true. 

I think it’s easy to get sucked into Tyrion’s POV, and the way that he thinks and acts. For the first few books, we very rarely get anyone’s opinion on Tyrion/view of Tyrion save Tyrion himself. 

It’s easy to get caught up in his assumptions of prejudice that the world has against him (and it’s easy to understand why he has these, I don’t deny that, but I just can’t get over it) 

If you actually pay attention, Tyrion assumes that everyone treats him badly/dislikes him etc because he’s a dwarf and they’re therefore prejudiced against him. Undoubtedly some of them are, but some of them have seriously good reasons for disliking them. 

See: Sansa Stark, who’s had basically her entire family killed by his, but Tyrion just assumes she doesn’t want him as a husband/won’t confide in him because he’s ugly. Disclaimer: IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU BUDDY. 

Also see: small folk in King’s Landing, who are angry with him for clearing away their homes and livelihoods during preparations for war. Tyrion understands why Tyrion is doing what he’s doing: it’s a practical measure for the sake of the defence of the city but...The people whose homes he’s destroying don’t understand that. But he blames their hatred of him on their prejudice of him being a dwarf. 

This isn’t necessarily a surprising character trait, not given how he grew up (I would never try and argue that Tywin wasn’t abusive towards him...But that doesn’t give Tyrion the right to be abusive in turn) but it does fill him with a certain amount of self-pity, and it limits his ability to actually self-reflect and realise that, shockingly, not everything he does is perfect, and people can dislike him for seriously valid reasons: ie, he’s a little shit. 

-The way he treats women is, frankly, disgusting. 

His disgust at being outsmarted by Catelyn in AGOT comes from the fact that someone outsmarted him, but it’s more than that, it’s because she’s a woman. he even remarks on the fact that her scheme worked in a large part because she is a woman. 

The general language he uses to talk about women is...gross. He views most of them as sexual objects/tools for him/other men to use. His liking of Robert Baratheon because Cersei hated him sticks out in relation to this. Robert, who repeatedly emotionally, verbally, and physically abused his wife, humiliated her publicly, blamed her for his abuse of her, and raped her, makes Cersei reasonably despise him. Tyrion, instead of showing sympathy for his sister, decides he likes Robert, because hey, who cares if he’s raping an essentially defenceless woman, right? He’s pissing her off, too, A++++ bloke. 

He’s surprised, indignant, and irritated that even women are allowed to participate in the votes/discussions of the mountain clansmen, like, how dare. 

People rage against Cersei for her hatred of Tyrion but it’s....Not exactly unfounded. Ignoring her being a child who had just lost her mother, whose father was giving her no support, and was blaming her newborn brother, and the prophecy that made her fear that Tyrion would kill her. 

Tyrion has, in the books that we know of: poisoned Cersei, manipulated her, undermined her, schemed to take her children away from her without her knowledge or consent, threatened her children on more than one occasion, including threatening his eight year old nephew with beatings and rape if Cersei doesn’t do what he wants, would have gone through with whipping said eight year old nephew just to hurt her,fantasised about raping and killing Cersei,  to the point that this is his ‘terms’ for working with Dany when Illyrio makes the offer to him. So...yeah, Tyrion has reason to hate Cersei, but Cersei has just as much, if not more, reason to hate and mistrust Tyrion. 

He’s also raped a slave at Illyrio’s manse, fully aware that she’s a slave, fully aware that she does not want him to have sex with her, fully aware that she cannot say no to him, which is why he does it. And the way he treated the prostitute in, I believe, Volantis, forcing himself on her again, and using the fact that they didn’t have a common language and she didn’t understand him. 

His treatment of prostitutes in general is...gross af. He views them as objects without agency. He treats them like possessions: he’s bought them, he can do whatever he wants with them, they’re his now. And his self-pity over Tysha when he learns the truth about her is also...gross af. Like, this poor girl was gang-raped while he watched, and then raped her last, the man she loved and agreed to marry, and all he can think about is his poor self. Fuck that shit.  

Shae. 

Literally everything about the way that he treats Shae. An eighteen year old, lowborn prostitute, who was forced out of her father’s house because he abused her and raped her as a child, with absolutely no agency, power, or person to speak for her. 

Everything about their travesty of a relationship is an abomination from the get-go. Starting with Tyrion’s commands to her: that he’s not only hiring her for sex, but to essentially act as his partner. She’s to please him in bed whenever he wants, but she’s commanded to also laugh at his jokes, pour him wine, rub the ache out of his sore legs, mourn for him if he dies, etc, etc, etc. Like if you don’t understand that it’s fucked up of him to do that to another human being, regardless of how much gold he’s giving them, I don’t know what to say to you. 

Tywin flat out tells Tyrion not to take Shae to court with him. Tyrion takes her anyway, to spite his father, knowing full well that if they’re found out, he won’t be punished, but Shae will likely be killed for his disobedience. 

He’s incredibly controlling towards Shae throughout her time with him. He essentially locks her up in a manse “for her safety” he deliberately gives her ugly guards, so she won’t be ‘tempted’ by them, and only visits her when he wants to fuck her. He complains that she’s a child when she complains about this, and he’s paying her, why should she complain? Because Shae is not a human being with her own thoughts, feelings, and desires, clearly, she’s just a sex toy for lord Tyrion. He’s bought her, and paid for her, and can do what he likes with her. 

The way he treats Shae is a pretty good representation of how he sees/treats most prostitutes. Like an object. Like a thing that he’s bought and can use as he wishes. Shae is not a human being to him, she’s not a person, she’s a thing that he can fully possess and control because he’s paying her and it’s disgusting. 

Throughout their time together, Tyrion constantly dismisses her feelings/emotions, reminding himself that she’s “only a whore” that she doesn’t love him, and is in this only for his money. (And, reminder: Shae acting like his wife, telling him she loves him, wanting on him, and being only with him, is what he commanded her to do, and paid her to do, at the outset of this little arrangement) Yet he then kills her for being a prostitute and doing her job.

 Tywin hired her and she slept with him as she slept with Tyrion, because he was paying her, and she was only a whore doing her job. But when she wasn’t doing that for Tyrion, then she had to die. Nineteen years old, helpless, abused, used, and murdered by a cold, shallow, selfish little man who, again, wallows in self-pity and thinks only of himself in the face of another’s suffering. 

The entirety of ADWD is just...Tyrion at his worst/typical, without the illusions of being an excellent, poor unfortunate soul. He drinks, he uses whores, he rapes, he cheats, he manipulates, he lies, he kills, and generally does a whole host of Bad Shit with the sole aim of benefiting him, him, and only him. 

He’s an undoubtedly well-written character. He has, in many ways, a very sympathetic arc and narrative, especially with the way it’s written. But he has a huge host of problems and things that are..beyond redemption. And the way fandom moons over him, and fawns over him, and pities him, and forgives him for every little thing he’s ever done wrong because he’s just so hard done to, boils my blood as much as anything else. 

So, yeah, an abridged rant on: why I fucking hate Tyrion Lannister. 

[aion-rsa]

Raised by Wolves Ending Explained

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This piece contains spoilers for the Raised by Wolves season 1 finale.

Once HBO Max’s Raised by Wolves introduced a seeming immaculate conception for its necromancer android Mother (Amanda Collin), there was no doubt that the season finale would revolve around her giving birth. However, it is anything but the miracle that the humans and androids alike have hoped for, and only further complicates the question of how this ragtag pack will continue to survive on an increasingly deadly planet.

The series concludes its first season with a lot of unanswered questions, including some new ones posed in this episode alone. From the identity of the Mithraic prophet to revelations about Kepler-22b’s inhuman inhabitants, we sort through what we know about this planet and its various factions, and make some educated guesses about next season.

Mithraics vs. Atheists: Who Will Win?

By the final episode, “The Beginning,” Earth’s warring sides are both still building to a final showdown. Sue (Niamh Algar) has escaped the increasingly fracturing cult led by her increasingly unstable husband Marcus (Travis Fimmel), with the children in tow. She reluctantly allies herself with Mother while they escape to another part of the planet where Mother thinks it will be safest to give birth.

Meanwhile, Marcus hasn’t been doing a good job of keeping the few remaining Mithraic soldiers together. He killed one soldier who questioned his plans, prompting Lucius (Matias Varela), whose father Marcus supposedly killed in battle on Earth, to trick him into revealing that he is actually an atheist.

Lucius and Marcus fight, with the former shoving one of Mother’s killer eyeballs into Marcus’ mouth and leaving him for dead. After the Mithraics continue on after Mother, Marcus gets up and follows Mother and Father’s (Abubakar Salim) lander, led by what seems to be an altered state caused by the eyeball. Eventually he makes it to the snowy part of the planet, where he witnesses a hallucination of Hunter (Ethan Hazzard) with a snake for a hand, telling Marcus that he is Sol’s one true servant before the snake bites him in the neck. 

Marcus later encounters a group of atheists, though it’s unexplained how they made it to Kepler-22b. After killing all but one, he makes contact with their leaders and introduces himself as “the king of this world” there to bring about Sol’s judgment. While he guides the survivor to pray with him, the atheists’ ship emerges overhead. It would seem that Marcus is embedded so deep within his own delusions to believe himself a Mithraic, despite being reunited with his supposed allies from the war.

Who Are the Planet’s Other Inhabitants?

When one of the creatures tries to attack Mother while she’s still pregnant, she easily kills it. At first she and Father believe that the humanoid-looking body is proof that the more feral creatures are evolving, like humans did on Earth. Then they discover that it is holding a Neanderthal skull—but it didn’t come from Earth. The androids realize that these creatures are humans whose existence on the planet far predates their warring settlements.

The humans aren’t evolving, Mother further realizes, they’re devolving. Father backs this up by suggesting that “this planet has a history [that] I fear we are dangerously ignorant of.”

Exploring the caves on her own, Mother discovers the lifeless components of the strange creature she glimpsed in her vision (after scanning the atheists’ tarot cards): a dodecahedron with a helmeted head swiveling on it, spitting out the androids’ white blood. When she removes the helmet, she discovers a petrified head that looks as if it could be some sort of android (with wiring), but whose expression looks very human and tortured.

It’s unclear how these figures relate to the devolving humans, but it clearly has some significance to Mother’s fetus, because it compels her to give “birth” to whatever is inside her.

Who Will Save the Children?

The children seem to be doing a commendable job taking care of themselves. Tempest (Jordan Loughran) finally gets closure with regard to her rapist Otho, who the group encountered in the remains of the Mithraic Ark. While initially Mother stopped Tempest from killing him, in favor of draining his blood to feed her fetus, he soon reverses the process to strengthen himself with her android blood. After he attacks Mother, Tempest and Holly (Aasiya Shah), the latter emboldened by the Mithraic relic of Romulus’ tooth, steal the head of Otho’s android guard. By throwing it ten feet away from him, they cause his helmet to crush his head, killing him right before he manages to strangle Tempest.

True to his self-professed smarts, Hunter notices that Father has been tapping out a message in Morse code: Sol is the light. When Marcus cuts off Father’s finger to stop him from communicating, it prompts a system reset. Recalling the password, Hunter is able to revert Father to his old, bad-joke-sharing personality.

Meanwhile, Paul (Felix Jamieson) discovers a cave with paintings predicting various events of the series, including Mother and Father’s initial landing on the planet… and an eerie, shifting, snake-like figure. He also hears voices from what he believes is Sol. While initially he told his mother Sue that he was only faking it because Marcus had mentioned voices, this time he proves that he is communicating with someone because he learns that Marcus and Sue are really Caleb and Mary. With this information, he shoots Sue in the stomach.

Paul is also obsessed with helping Mother safely birth her baby, believing it to be a holy mission from Sol. Poor kid is about to get a nasty awakening…

What is Mother’s Baby?

Raise your hand if you saw Mother’s “fetus” starting to warp her belly before eventually emerging through her throat, and thought Raised by Wolves might wind up as part of the Alien extended universe. Instead, she gives “birth” to something resembling a lamprey eel, down to the circular mouth full of sharp teeth. It immediately begins suckling on her stomach, initially drinking her milk, she says, though she fears that next it will want human blood.

Previously, Mother had thought that the baby was somehow a gift from the memory simulation of Campion, her and Father’s creator. But once she gives birth, she seems to think that the creature’s origins are due not to Mithraic culture but to “something else,” presumably some unknown force on the planet. The androids agree that the eel cannot be allowed to reach the children or anyone else, as it will kill them all.

Who Dies in the Season Finale?

Shockingly, almost no one except the Mithraic soldier and Otho. By the end of the episode, Sue is still bleeding from her stomach wound, but it doesn’t look fatal. And even though Mother and Father willingly take the lander in a suicide mission to destroy her eel baby, they both survive the flight through the planet’s core and the subsequent crash on the other side.

What’s Causing All the Visions?

By the end of the first season, various characters have all experienced some form of visual and/or auditory hallucination that has something to do with the strange workings of the planet. It could be ghosts—especially as Campion has glimpsed his deceased sibling Tally—but it could also be some chemical or radioactive effect of the planet’s atmosphere. Likely Raised by Wolves season 2 will delve more into how and why Campion, Marcus, Mother, and others are seeing and hearing figures that aren’t there.

Who is the Mithraic Prophet?

Believing Mother and Father to be dead, having seen them fly into the pit, Campion seems to accept that he must become the leader of the surviving humans. They all look to him at the end, Sue included, and the final shot is him walking over to them.

Yet Marcus is still alive and believes that he himself fulfills the Mithraic prophecy. It’s unlikely that the atheists would put much stock in that, but if he is still firm in his conviction, he may be able to make them doubt their own beliefs.

But now that Paul knows that Marcus and Sue aren’t his real parents—not to mention his recent visions from Sol—he might believe that he is the orphan boy in an empty land, meant to lead. No doubt he and Campion will clash next season.

What’s in Store for Season 2?

While Mother and Father’s Mithraic enemies have not yet caught up to them, they have a new and pressing threat to face next season: Mother’s eel baby was not destroyed in the lander crash, as they had intended, and escaped the wreckage to fly away to parts unknown. Based on how eager the fetus was for blood, however, it seems clear that the eel is going on a bloodthirsty spree from which humans, devolved humans, and androids alike will not be safe.

Due to its accelerated growth, the eel is also much bigger than it was at birth, resembling somewhat the serpentine skeletons at Mother and Father’s original settlement. Is this the planet’s dominant species? Do they normally reproduce via a womb, or is this a dangerous new evolution?

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No doubt the second season will explore what kind of threat these creatures pose. The attempt to destroy the offspring also revealed that the planet is pockmarked with deep pits—perhaps carved by the eel creatures—and that it is possible to descend into a pit, through the center of the planet, and out another side. Up until now, the pits have seemed like endless holes that have meant certain death; knowing that they are traversable may change how these new colonists explore the planet, and who they might cross paths with while doing so.

Raised by Wolves is available on HBO Max.

The post Raised by Wolves Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[an-enigmatic-avenger]

Sinners and Saviors

We are daughters of sanctimony and sex, our bodies a religion you decided to force piety onto. Our eyes words you disregarded, our mouth the holy doctrine you interpreted for your own good, our figures the sins you say we need to pay for. When you take us to church, you try to drown us in holy water, our baptisms are by jury, where you sentence us to the fires because we dare say we are holy. The Eucharist you force into our mouths an attempt to satisfy our hunger for equality and justice, the blood an attempt to wash away our tears. The rosary you put around our neck the dress codes designed to shame us and choke us, the sign of the cross a sign of condemnation. You hang us by nun habits and crop tops, burn us by laws designed to protect rapists, drown us by the never ending line of red tape. We have become your new crusade, our bodies your new sick obsession that you crave to civilize. Because we, of course, are barbarians, our body hair a sign of wildness (because how dare we let our hair grow) , our unmake-uped face a sign of solecism (because how dare we not show respect to the men in our life), our empathy a sign of primitivism (because how dare we show any other emotion other than demureness). Because, of course, we are barbaric, and the archaic laws that say a man will not go to jail for raping a woman if he marries her is not barbaric, the fact that woman are fifty percent of the population and we only account for 19% of the members of Congress and we have never had a female president is not barbaric, the fact that periods are considered taboo and women are sent to huts and some recently have been bit by snakes and die are not barbaric, the fact that women are shamed for taking control of their own body is barbaric, and the fact that those in power who are often men twist Jesus' words of peace and love into words of war and hate and shame. Remember that Jesus ate with the prostitutes and widows, and the first disciples of Jesus were women, and the one who brought Jesus into the world was a woman. But you don't see it that way. You see us as harlots and whores, our strength, power, and worth as a sign of devil worship. We had to deny that ancient power of sisterhood and motherhood and daughter hood that was present in each of us because you thought it was sinful. Because we may be daughter of sanctimony and sex, seductresses made out of sermons and secrets, but we are also daughters of stars and sunlight, goddesses made out of salt and silver, scions of a proud and long line of sinners and saviors. Because we are the Liliths you prosecuted for being too vain and too sexual, too dirty for your liking, thrown away after you were finished with us. Because we are the Joans of Arc you burned at the stake for being too smart and too sacred, because we dared to be prophets and prophecies, something a man could only be. Because we may as well be sinners if this is the religion you preach.