#anti show sansa stark stans

[ethereal-elegance]

@treehillraven23-blog

How delusional,dumb,and ignorant do you have to be believe this bs as a cop out to dismiss and downplay Daenerys' lack of privilege and family for most of her life,ntm victim blame her because your callous ass lacks empathy for the character☠️Daenerys literally lost everything (most of her family,her home,and what her family had that would've been hers) before she was even born as her mother died shortly after giving her (like Jon's mother,Lyanna),literally started life with nothing (all she would've had if Rhaegar didn't die,if Elia,Rhaenys,and Aegon,literally had nothing even begin with but her name and blood.So congratulations on implying you agree with these facts🤡🙃

And just because she never had the opportunity to know Rhaegar, the privilege to know all her siblings, since that was one of many she was robbed of even birth,it still count as loss especially when it's important full blood related members of the family such as her mother,Rhaella,who suffered all her life being abused by Mad King Aerys even before their father forced the sister and brother to marry for the Prince Who Was Promised prophecy.Viserys was almost just as cruel and abusive to Dany as Aerys was to Rhaella throughout their lives as just a brother,then her husband and king.I bet you would be agreeing with me if it was about Jon regarding Lyanna because it's always double standards with antis,since y'all are so full of shit.

Jon stans (but can't expect you to know since all nonas crackshippers are glorified self-insert sardine stans who projecting to fantasize about fucking Kit Harrington😂) of all people should know damn well how deep the void of a mother is (as Jon has serious mother issues thanks to being mistreated and looked down on due to his bastardy and Catelyn's abuse towards him as supposedly the product of Ned's infidelity),because Lyanna is more important to the narrative for some of the main characters,Jon and Arya,like Rhaegar is to Dany while Rhaella is not thanks to GRRM's intention with his writing in the books.Not to mention Dany looks up to Rhaegar and longs to know him even in death,which is why she's eager to learn about Rhaegar.So your reasoning is invalid regardless,and your first part about Viserys is downright blatant nonsensical lies🤦🏾‍♀️🤨

Daenerys did not "hElP" Khal Drogo to kill Viserys🙄There was literally nothing Dany could do to protect and save Viserys even though she told the Dothraki who witnessed Viserys assault her not to harm Viserys,and even tried to warn him against his misbehavior by giving him a taste for what's was to come if you continued,hence why Viserys was forced to walk on foot instead of riding on horseback as punishment for assaulting Dany.Not to mention GoT never shows Dany actually loved Viserys,still loves him,even misses him (since she remembers how well he treated her back then when he still loved her),but she would and could no longer help him (as she lacked agency and power even as Khal Drogo's wife as a girl who is actually just his child bride sex slave) after warning him about how his violent disrespect to the Dothraki and herself pregnant with Khal Drogo's son as his wife since Viserys forced her to marry the much bigger,much older,much scarier Khal Drogo so young as she was literally just a girl,just a child.

Let's just conveniently ignore book canon of how Viserys changed when he had sell the only thing left of their mother,Rhaella's crown,for food to survive as Dany was severely sick from starvation.Viserys snapped in that moment because he was very close to Rhaella,so he began being cruel,too harsh,verbally,emotionally,and physically abusive to Dany and had been terrorizing her ever since.Viserys would literally beat when "she woke the dragon",and it's obvious when he was even terrorizing her in her dragon dream in the books with the bruises on her naked body and her apparent fear,which is why the dream is symbolic of Dany being scared to wake her dragon.Dany's fear and her body language like she's trying to hide or escape from Viserys is also proof of this besides the memory pre-aSoIaF in one of her chapters Viserys beat Dany so hard all just because Dany spilled,clocked Viserys,and called out his double standards towards her concerning how she should've been born earlier.

As if it's somehow Dany's fault the Targaryens "fell from grace" due to Robert's Rebellion when she wasn't even born yet and just a baby when the Targaryen dynasty ended😭Viserys really had the audacity to shift the blame from the adults onto Dany and actually said if she would've been born earlier,Rhaegar would've had a much better option to marry instead,so Rhaegar would've have been so weak to be so enamored and lovesick with Lyanna he practically threw everything away to elope with her.That memory is manifested into a dragon dream as likely a trauma response similar to nightmares and PTSD of abuse victims.Since Dany was scared of him for years (which is a common response of abuse victims towards their abuser) as she reveals in her POV chapters Viserys hurt her,it can be inferred Viserys actually acted upon his threat towards Dany and the events of that dragon dream really happened before.

Let's just conveniently ignore Viserys consistently insulting and offending the Dothraki with his superiority complex,lashing out at a pregnant Dany and being violent towards her,provoking Khal Drogo by threatening to harm his wife and unborn child.Khal Drogo was literally protecting her from Viserys who posed a threat as he'd shown them all what he was capable with all his unprovoked,unwarranted hostility towards his own full blood related sister,his only family left.Not to mention in the books,Viserys planned to rape Dany before she married Khal Drogo and tried to enter her room at night,but Illyrio foresaw this and had guards stationed outside her door.Viserys felt entitled to Dany's maidenhead (virginity) which he perceived to be belong to him due to his Valyrian blood purity and supremacy and perceiving her as his property,because he believed Dany was supposed to be his bride and give him heirs as his only sister and other full blood Targaryen besides himself.

Oh the irony of Viserys' possessiveness of Dany when he sold his own sister,his only family to Khal Drogo in exchange for an army to take back his birthright,the Iron Throne.Tell me without telling me you never really read the books or even watched the show,most likely skipped Dany's chapters and scenes as antis tend to do,because y'all lack basic reading comprehension skills and are just too threatened by a character as iconic,compelling,great,and complex as Dany🤡

Even in the context of GoT,Viserys was still a cruel,abusive brother to Dany.Literally molested her,literally said he'd let all the Khal Drogo's men and their horses fuck her if that's what it would take to reclaim the Iron Throne,calls her degrading and derogatory slurs rooted in his racism and Valyrian blood supremacy such "Dothraki whore,Horse's slut" despite forcing her to marry the Khal for his own ends for the crown;Not to mention let's just conveniently forget Viserys really threatened to cut out Dany's unborn child when she was pregnant.After everything Viserys did to his own sister,even planned and tried to do to her,Viserys reaped what he sowed and honestly deserved what he got although I do have sympathy and pity for him considering how much his life changed for the worse due to Rhaegar's death and Robert Baratheon usurping.

But Viserys was wrong in punishing Dany for Rhaella's death,blaming and never forgiving her for Rhaella dying from childbirth.It's not her fault as she was literally just a baby fresh out of the womb.So it's valid and true Daenerys lost two brothers including her mother who GRRM rarely mentioned compared to Rhaegar and Aerys + GoT never even cared about to acknowledge Rhaella's existence considering it didn't suit their skewed narrative (but GRRM only used as a writing device often in fiction for characterization and character development to motivate Dany to become a true monarch who prioritizes her duty to the people over the self and devotes her life to protect and care for her people like a mother as the Mhysa/Mother of Dragons,the mother she never while being in the process of fulfilling the void of 'family','home',and "the childhood she had never known" by giving her people that symbolized by protection,security,and safety,because she can't bring back the dead or go back in time to save her family, and she can't even obtain the house with the red door,the lemon tree,and "the childhood she had never known" ) and great-great grand uncle Maester Aemon,who the GRRM didn't even have her meet unlike the likes of Jon who grew up with a father and siblings in a castle.

They’re both gone now. 

[daenerystargaryen06]

Can antis like, keep away from Daenerys please?

I'm so tired of seeing people writing out crap that Daenerys will be the villain, Jon is better, she is mad, calling her Danielle, yada yada. Just say you don't like her (because she is ultimately better than your fave) and go.

I'm also tired of seeing people giving the Starks (especially Sansa) her traits. I've seen edits of people making Sansa a Targ, people talking about how she'll get Daenerys' dragons, that Jon will kill Dany for her, etc.

Just keep Daenerys' name out of your mouth if you hate her and can't stand that she is strong, independent, and has an amazing character arc. A majority of Daenerys fans don't like other asoiaf characters, but you hardly see any of them going on a tangent about how much they hate that character. Usually it's us Dany fans defending anti hate against Dany and also defending antis hate on Dany to prop up their own fave (mainly Sansa).

I heavily have a high disdain for show!Sansa (she's alright in the books, not my fave but she's much better compared to the garbage that is her show character). But I don't go out of my way to hate on her, diss her character, write pointless metas about her going "mad", "evil", or "dark". Nor do I see any other Dany fan doing so. We don't hate on Sansa to prop up Dany. We don't give Dany character traits of other characters/Sansa. We don't speculate about how she'll die or get killed or manipulated by another man. It's disgusting.

It's also disgusting seeing anti hate towards Arya. Arya is my second favorite female character in asoiaf. She isn't ugly, she isn't crazy or some violent murderer, she isn't going to be permanently warged into Nymeria and become Sansa's; nor is she going to become Sansa's assigned assassin to kill all her enemies while Sansa and Jon live in lala land. It's not going to happen.

It is so disgusting how a vast majority of Arya and Dany fans don't do half the things their antis/Sansa stans do, yet they go out of their way to bash these wonderful characters to prop up their own fave or to get them out of the way for Sansa or Jon (mainly Jon fans who bash Daenerys to prop Jon up and cheer Jon for killing her).

We can talk about our faves without bashing another character, making metas about them that don't even follow the text, and just being outright nasty.

Do better. Just keep away from Daenerys and Arya.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Another reason that Stansas hate the idea of Arya and Dany being friends (outside of them wanting to demonize Dany) is that they've convinced themselves that Dany and Sansa are the only main female characters, so if a Stark sister is going to have a significant relationship with Dany it has to be Sansa. Arya being constantly downplayed and treated like an accessory to Sansa has generally led to the consensus that her relationship with Dany will be defined by whatever Sansa's relationship (positive or negative) with her is. That's why Arya is always being left out of the "we were robbed of [x] female character friendship" conversations and why theories about Dany/Arya getting along are treated as Sansa hate; Arya, as a character, is seen as secondary to Sansa by a lot of people

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

TG stans and stansas rejoice in and ridicule women who get brutalized by their intimate partners, suffer traumatic miscarriages, lose almost all their children, and are murdered by a family member then turn around and cry about Helaena and Sansa's treatments in the fandom.

TG stans call Rhaenyra a fat whore, call her lazy for not riding a dragon into battle after a traumatic miscarriage (btw it takes 1-2 months to recover from a miscarriage), mock Visenya's death, and view the rest of Rhaenyra's children as subhuman. But when TB points out how Helaena and Aegon were both overweight in the book, talk about how Helaena went insane after B&C, and how she doesn't do much plot wise in either the book or show, they start bitching.

They complain about how people shouldn't target Helaena's weight, we should be sympathetic to her after her son is murdered, and she's really a victim so we should pity her not critique how little she does. Yeah, I agree, Helaena deserves sympathy for everything that happened to her, but so does Rhaenyra. But that doesn't matter to greenies, they just hate Rhaenyra so much that they'll act just as if not more awful than the misogynistic lords of Westeros.

Stansas will blame thirteen year old Dany for the crimes of her father, blame a bridal slave for the acts of her husband who bought her, call her a psychopath for not "properly" mourning her abusive brother who threatened to carve out her unborn baby, mock Rhaego's death, say she's a selfish person for freeing slaves, say she's a tyrant/horrible ruler for not perfectly dismantling a system built on millenia of slavery, mock her death, and theorize she'll turn into an mad tyrant based on nothing.

But if anyone criticized Sansa's portrayal on GoT, say she was being willfully ignorant in AGOT, talk about how she's persisting in her fantasies, critique how she acted in seasons 7/8, or theorize literally any ending for her character other than being qitn, they're sexist and hate all "feminine" women. They come up with the most horrible theories and write such hateful metas about Dany but then turn around and act like they and Sansa are the ones being victimized.

The shear hypocrisy of TG and Sansa stans is astounding, it's no wonder those parts of the fandom overlap so much. As long as they have their victims that they can project onto (Alicent/Helaena and Sansa), they're happy. But if anyone dares to criticize the characters or point out actual facts from the story, they turn around and bitch about how much we "hate their poor babies". It's just so frustrating seeing how much they hate and hate Rhaenyra and Daenerys yet reject anything that doesn't align with their ideas.

[ai-manre]

Jon Snow had bent the knee to Queen Daenerys. Sansa did not like that.

They have a long conversation.

[Show!Sansa has a lot of (invalid) criticisms of Dany. Show!Jon is incapable of responding but Book!Jon can.]

[la-pheacienne]

On violence being used to sympathize with the female character: I find it scary how D&D read Theon's arc and thought "what a cool story, let's put Sansa in Jeyne's place?? She doesn't do anything in the Vale anyway"Because what she went through in KL wasn't enough, she had to suffer more. Even S0phie T. said in the behind-the-scenes book that she loved this arc because Sansa finally gained fans. I would hate to know that it ONLY now appears fans because my character was raped.

It is seriously fucked up indeed. Like the thought process they had to go through in order to conclude that Sansa needs to have Jeyne's arc. Indeed, that was the end of Arya as the protagonist we are supposed to sympathise with and Sansa as her foil : Sansa became central, but as a symbol of martyrdom, not as a fully fledged character. Yeah I know she became a girlboss later on but that was bullshit, so so forced, like a reward for what she went through.

[daensa]

i just find it hilarious on how quiet the so called anti-bullying crowd is on tumblr when it comes to aemond and not arya stark. when got was airing/when yall pick up 10 chapters to read its the constant whining about how sansa is a mean girl who is bullying aryas looks and manners while DEAD SILENT when it was happening to aemond. it just goes to show on how anti targaryen the entirety of the stark stans are. i mean, it was non stop posting about sansa getting what she deserved when it was arya, but aemond did actually break through his bullies cycle and got revenge after all the pain that was inflicted to him and yet 0 people are out here seeing how that sets such an interesting example of how you can overcome bullying. just this episode he discussed his pain and experience from the whole trauma, even showing guilty towards the perpetrator but yall wont post about that bc bla bla bla targaryens are imperialist. funny that you are only anti-bullying when it concerns you

[theweirwoodfiles]

Not to sound overdramatic but stan culture has irreparably damaged the ASOIAF fandom and created very black and white thinking re: characters and kind of, like, a tribalistic atmosphere - for instance, if you love the Starks you can't also love the Targaryens. GoT also helped the fandom decay because it almost completely removed the fantasy elements from a fantasy series. So now you have a fandom that honestly thinks the War for the Dawn is no biggie and that Targs are the REAL threat.

Absolutely. This sort of mentality was at its peak during S7&8 of GOT when you had Sansa stans vs Daenerys stans because for some reason the fandom decided you cant enjoy both. One has to be “an ender” and the other “a flop”. They would put all their effort into sympathizing with the trauma of one, and then use the others trauma as a joke to show how they got “ate up”. So really their sympathy and understanding of a character only extends to their favs.

And we’re seeing it again with this team green vs team black fan war and it’s even worse because the show actively markets it. The fandoms of each team have this “us vs them” mentality again, and because of it they don’t engage with the story critically at all. They only want their team to “win”, whether that be having the best moments, the best characters, the best writing, they take each and any little moment they can possibly cling to to spin as some sort of win for them and loss for the other side. 

What’s funny is that even in the TG vs TB discourse you can still see traces of the anti-targ/Dany phenomenon, despite the fact that both sides are Targaryens. Many Sansa stans have become Aegonwives (ironic) and Alicent stans and hate Rhaenyra and Daemon for having qualities that members of team green also share. They don’t care about the hypocrisy though, they just see team black as the closest thing to Dany, that’s the source of their hatred.

(And mind you, Aegon and Aemond embody all things they claim to hate about Targaryens).

[sayruq]

What’s the deal with Arya fans pretending Sansa stans are the ones who like to downplay Arya’s suffering as if it wasn’t the other way around? They project so much, it’s unbelievable. They say we claim Arya looks down on traditional femininity. I can only speak for myself, but I’ve read lots of metas written by Sansa stans that acknowledge Arya respects women in general. That’s why I hate the way so many people condescendingly write post saying that “it’s okay to love both sisters” “you don’t have to put the other down just to prop your fave up”. As if both sisters receive the same amount of hate. Well, I think it’s also okay to NOT love both sisters and have a favorite one. I hate how many bloggers pretend to like Sansa when they obviously don’t (sansabuts) and pretend Arya is not a extremely loved and popular character (there’s nothing wrong with that) and Sansa is not a controversial one, that many people love, but it’s still misunderstood by lots of readers as a shallow, selfish and weak girl. It’s just so mean spirited.

What’s the deal with Arya fans pretending Sansa stans are the ones who like to downplay Arya’s suffering as if it wasn’t the other way around?

They want to be us so badly it makes them look stupid.

There's over a decade of metas on why

people shouldn't downplay Sansa's suffering

people should respect and appreciate Sansa's strengths including her intelligence, charm, wit, resilience, etc

people should understand that being feminine isn't bad at all even in a fantasy book.

etc etc

Arya stans just copy and paste and then point the finger at us ☠️.

The meanest things I've seen Sansa stans say regularly is #shipgirl or making fun of Arya for not knowing sigils.

Arya stans will wake up and say the most misogynistic thing you've ever heard in your life. The kind of shit that would make a 4chan incel blush.

I hate how many bloggers pretend to like Sansa when they obviously don’t (sansabuts) and pretend Arya is not a extremely loved and popular character (there’s nothing wrong with that) and Sansa is not a controversial one, that many people love, but it’s still misunderstood by lots of readers as a shallow, selfish and weak girl. It’s just so mean spirited.

I think a big reason those stans have been so pissed off the past couple of years is because Sansa is no longer the controversial character. She's fairly popular these days among book readers. It's no longer commonplace for people to sprout hate towards her (outside of certain fanbases). People like her and people appreciate her the way they didn't in the 90s and 2000s. It helps that the show indicated where Sansa will end up - on the Northern throne after returning to Winterfell and playing a key role in defeating the Boltons (Ramsay or Roose, take your pick).

Sansa is no longer in Arya's shadow, she's not the 'irrelevant' Stark. She has her own fierce fandom. She clearly has an exciting story in the next two books. She's arguably the one who won the Game of Thrones. All those theories about Sansa marrying the Hound and disappearing from the story or Sansa staying in the Vale no longer read like viable theories but antis coping.

[unserenedreaming]

Pushing Sansa Stark, the girl who is currently canonically sitting pretty and well fed in the Vale with no political or social power as the "brains" of house Stark instead of:

Jon Snow, the youngest lord commander of the Night's Watch, a shrewd but still compassionate leader

Arya Stark, a charismatic polygot who is currently learning from the most notorious asassin's guild in the world

Bran Stark who can now see through all Weirwoods past and present, who has basically infinite knowledge at his fingertips

But yeah, Sansa is obvi the smartest Stark around

Personally, I plan to never get over how D&D tried to push Sansa Stark as the brains behind the Starks' martial strategy and leadership -- you know, with all of her "experience" vs Jon's literal years in a defence organization.

[fromtheseventhhell]

I'm rewatching the season 8 of GOT, and it's amazing how it gets worse each time each time I notice a new inconsistency. the fact that the prophecy was for nothing, and how with arya killing the night king it made me understand that anyone could kill him, this person just had to have aegon's dagger in their hands like (???)

Why would you do that to yourself?? Forget rewatching, I haven't even watched the final episode (and I never will) 😭

The past few seasons of that show made no sense and I'm tired of people pretending otherwise. It was literally that "anyone could've killed him"; they just shuffled through characters to find one that "felt right" and even considered the Hound or Brienne. The only options should've been Jon or Dany, but Jon would've been "too obvious" (as though being able to tell where the plot is going is a bad thing) and Dany killing the Night King would've been "too heroic" for a character they desperately wanted to demonize. So we were left with...what we got, which really highlights how poorly D&D handled all of these characters. They made Arya's story all about being a fighter, erasing the majority of her development from the books, and then they didn't even make space for her to use those skills. Her face-changing skills never came up after she killed the Freys, she didn't carry out any actual assassinations (they didn't even consider sending her to kill Cersei?), and if they hadn't decided that she would kill the Night King she wouldn't have done anything significant. With the "Ed Sheeran was a surprise for Maisie's last season" thing I doubt they even initially planned for her to survive the entire time, which would've made her story even more pointless. They put no effort into writing her character and just did "whatever was most badass", but I'm supposed to believe that their writing for Arya is anywhere close to what George is writing for her 🥴

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

Sansa Following Cersei Will Not Make Her Queen

I'm sure a lot of people have seen how stansas like posting about how Sansa will become queen because she learned from Cersei. Example below. I'm going to talk about why that doesn't make sense in both the show and the book.

Example:

First off, the obvious: Cersei is not a good ruler. In the show, she is a tyrant (except in season 8 where everyone is just fine with her for some reason). She blows up Baelor's Sept to get rid her political rival, she doesn't care about the smallfolk or even lesser nobles, and she gets rid of anyone who criticizes her. How exactly is she a good role model?

You could say: "Oh she's doing the opposite!" Is she? In the show, she almost gets Jon killed in the Battle of the Bastards (and looks very disappointed when she sees he's alive) and helps cause Rickon's death by hiding the truth about the Vale Knights. Jon and Rickon are her political rivals and she is directly involved with what happens to them by deliberately hiding information, which she had no good reason to hide btw. Her undermining of Jon continues is season 7, where, when Jon is gone trying to get allies to save the fucking world, she encourages the Northern lords to literally speak treason by saying they should've chosen her over Jon. She also for some reason doesn't take into account the fact that Jon is planning on bringing back a giant army when she's making food storage plans. Why not? Is she hoping Jon will fail? Either way this follows show!Cersei's shortsightedness.

We have further proof of her being like Cersei when Daenerys arrives at WF. D&D have literally confirmed part of the reason Sansa didn't like Dany was because she's pretty. Putting aside how sexist that is, that kind of pettiness is not something you want in a ruler. We see how it negatively affected Cersei's reign as she alienated and eventually killed her allies because of Margaery's beauty and conflicting goals. If Daenerys hadn't gone randomly insane, would Sansa have pulled a Cersei and tried to get Dany killed? Well we'll never know, but considering how quickly she betrayed Jon when it meant undermining Dany, I wouldn't put much past her.

In the same vein as the Dany jealousy, is the whole "Not one of us" mentality. Throughout the show Cersei constantly utilizes this view as support for why she doesn't trust anyone. This greatly sabotages her reign and makes her completely isolated thus furthering her mental spiral (both in the books and the show). Again, not a great thing to emulate, but show!Sansa fully embraces this rhetoric when she encounters Dany and her people (which is super xenophobic btw). If it weren't for Dany being in the North, Sansa and everyone else would be wights and the Night King would be winning. And yet, Sansa is outright hostile to Dany (where is Sansa's courtesy which is her armor?) running the risk that Dany will leave. And if what she believed about her being insane like Aerys was true, shouldn't she be worried about being fed to dragons (even though Dany wouldn't)? This is so very reminiscent of Cersei and Margaery and the ending is very much the same.

In the books, yes, Sansa has learned some valuable things from Cersei. However, she doesn't want to be like Cersei, and that's something I admire about her. Book!Sansa is not on path to be queen, and that's ok, in fact, with her role models being Cersei and fucking Littlefinger, that's a good thing.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/740136068340482048/the-funniest-dni-i-ever-encountered-in-all-my-12?source=share

As a House Martell stan, it's been interesting to watch the evolution of that particular corner of the ASOIAF fandom over the years. For a while, because they were less present on the show (and their actual focus on the show was pretty bungled), they were mostly the favorites of superfans who'd read the books and therefore were deeply devoted to the whole ASOIAF universe, and given how much that means memorizing various types of Targaryen incest over the years, were almost never antis. A lot of people were also drawn to that they were the ~sexy, liberated house, as well as there being a fair number of POC who identified with some of the few non-white people in those books who were actually fully-realized characters (in the books, not so much in the show). IME it was usually people who were also shipping a lot of the other popular "problematic" ships in the fandom like Jaime/Cersei and Sansa/Petyr Baelish.

Then, at some point - particularly after the show ended and the fandom shrunk a lot - it got infected with a bunch of people writing long essays about how Daenerys and the entire Targaryen family were inherently "white supremacist" (previously, it had been more common for POC and other fans who focused on anti-racism to stan Daenerys, and point out that what the final season did with her was some white bullshit that tried to conflate killing oppressors like slavers with killing poor downtrodden people) and there ended up being a fandom fight between those people who saw the Targaryens as the more racist house or the Starks, but they all stanned Martells but in a very shallow sort of way just because they were the POC house. It's also worth nothing that Dorne has equal primogeniture - women can inherit, and in the books it's Doran's eldest daughter, Arianne, who is his heir, even though he has two younger sons - and it also is more accepting of LGBTQ+ people and bastards and general "sex outside of marriage" than most of the rest of Westeros, so it attracts a lot of people who are into them for that reason. I mean, I like them for that reason among others, but of course that's going to be a magnet to people who want to prove that they're extra special progressive for stanning them over like, the Lannisters.

Also, probably worth noting, the people in the second group were generally younger. Book-centric fans generally tend to be older IME in ASOIAF fandom. I feel like whenever a fandom is younger, there's more likely to be more anti behavior.

Anyway it was very weird to get back into ASOIAF when I read Fire and Blood and then when House of the Dragon started airing, and feeling like "my corner" of the fandom had become completely unrecognizable in my absence.

Also, I suspect it's probably drawing in some people who just really like Pedro Pascal. (It was better when it was drawing in the Alexander Siddig stans from DS9 fandom, snerk. Although even that fandom has had an obnoxious influx of younger purity-policing virtue-signalling types discovering it these days, writing stupid discourse about how Garak/Garashir is problematic and people should instead ship characters who don't like each other that much and don't interact much one-on-one because the combinations of them are more progressive or something.... sigh! Anyway, probably not helped by the fact that Game of Thrones completely wasted him, even though his character was one of the best ones in the books and a big one that drew me into loving House Martell. He would've been great as book!Doran, but alas....)

I'm also going to say that as others have pointed out, I'll always be mystified by the fact that ASOIAF even HAS antis. If you're that opposed to incest, age-disparate relationships, violence, etc. anything controversial, how can you stan the actual canon of that show? Or the books, which arguably have even more rape and incest and ephebephilia going on. It just seems like you'd have to have a very adversarial relationship with canon to a point that I just don't understand why you don't pick another fandom. Of course, it's probably really just that antis are hypocrites.

--

Hypocrites, yes. But also drawn to material that they're not comfortable being drawn to. The younger they are, the more the cognitive dissonance makes them act out.

I don't condone it, but I do understand it.

[ladyaryawolf]

Time passes and every single day I think that this godforsaken show shouldn't have existed.

History of Westeros tries to act like some sort of ASOIAF authority because they've re-read the books several times, but they really aren't. They legitimately released a YouTube short about Robb's Will being up in the air, which is correct, it is, but they also said that Sansa's marriage to Tyrion was annulled, which is factually wrong and just sounds like annoying Sansa Stan propaganda this fandom loves to spew that completely misconstrues and makes up about Sansa as a character and her arc and themes. I know Stansa's love coming up with excuses about Robb's Will to try to explain how Sansa can become Lady/Queen or the North/Winterfell (spoiler alert: she doesn't even have a leadership arc so how does that make sense?) but this is just next tier bullshit. Sansa's marriage isn't annulled just because you wish it hard enough. Littlefinger is hoping Tyrion is dead so that when Sansa makes her grand appearance after marrying Harry the Heir, it's not proved she's some bigamist, and that her marriage is legitimate. Littlefinger didn't magically finagle an annulment. No Sansa is still Lady Lannister in the books by the people of Westeros no matter how much this fandom wants to boo and hiss and complain about it. No matter what you want, this is what she is known to be in the books right now, just like Arya is still Lady Bolton and Lady of Winterfell (through proxy) by the people in Westeros. No matter how much you complain, it doesn't negate canon.

Can't say I'm surprised though. History of Westeros has defended the show and actually thinks what happened in the show, will largely take place in the books. And they are legitimate Arya anti's. I remember a few years ago they tried answering a question about what they think Arya's upcoming arc and endgame could be, and they couldn't think up anything beyond her either dying or sailing away. How can you be a self-proclaimed ASOIAF authority and not even take Arya's character and arc seriously enough to have legitimate, good faith ideas about where it's going considering she's one of the five main protagonists? Riddle me that?

It's ridiculous and all of this just proves my point. New fans of these books, or even older fans of these books who haven't re-read them, or haven't re-read them in a long time, need to be wary of these so-called "authorities" in fandoms, because most of the time they are biased and they spread lies. It's not a coincidence that most of the lies these people spread always misconstrued or flat out lie about Sansa's character, arc, plots, or circumstances in the books, either. I mean just look at this claim that Sansa's marriage to Littlefinger is already annulled. Look at how many things would come easier to her if that was the case. Not only would she no longer be tied to the Lannister name, but if she were to go on and wed another she wouldn't be considered a bigamist and it would be legitimate. And that's not even considering the fact that the reason Robb made up a Will was to specifically disinherit Sansa from ever getting Winterfell after being married into the Lannister family, so that the Lannister's couldn't claim it through her.

Hmm...kind of seems like History of Westeros isn't just making a dumb mistake (which you'd think would be edited out in the editing process if it was) but actually spreading lies to support their Pawn to Player/Queen Sansa propaganda even though it's still highly unlikely that Sansa would ever become leader of the North even if she got an annulment considering everything going against her in her own arc, which doesn't even include the fact that she quite literally doesn't have a leadership arc and she's the most passive POV character I've ever read and how she's constantly in lalaland. The fact that Robb, the legitimate heir to Winterfell, had to prove himself worthy in a bloody and violent and proactive way, should tell us everything about what the North is looking for in a leader, and it's not some pretty princess puppet planning parties. Sorry not sorry.

[rise-my-angel]

Why does anti-North sentiment seem so prevalent in this fandom? I can't scroll in the main tags for longer than, like, 5 minutes without seeing something borderline discriminatory said (or implied) about it.

When I first read the books, it was abundantly clear to me that the Northmen and how they're treated was meant to represent how some actual peoples are treated irl, on the grounds of them being 'uncivilised' in the eyes of the majority- So, why are there so many people who speak about the Nort in such an offensive manner? I wish I could say that it was just the Targ fans, but I have seen multiple Sansa fans have this exact same stance as well, to my surprise. Do these people just happen to not pick up on the coding the North has, or is there some other reason for it that I don't know?

I'm gonna say something people won't like, but there sometimes is not a lot of difference between the extreme Dany fans and the extreme Sansa fans. They are cut from the same cloth in how they behave. Now, obviously Sansa doesn't have war crimes under her ledger, so being extreme about her isn't as big of a deal, but the way her stans behave is not so different from the Dany stans they hate so much.

Her behavior is always excused, and justified. She is never held accountable for when she truly did something wrong, or is in the wrong, She is propped up as someone who is going to come out on top as Queen in some way, when nothing of her story points to that ending. They are very aggressive about anyone who disagrees, and they participate in the very same insufferable toxic incest shipping war that Dany stans do.

Those people see the North this way, because they do not see Sansa as a Northerner. Sansa has a lot superficially about her that is southern coded. Her looks, her attitude, her mannerisms are all very much an extension of her mother, septa mordane and the south. So, they see those things and portray her in a manner that shows she is above all of the Northern traits.

She is kind and well put together and will civilize these unruly Northern Lords with grace. They want Sansa to be Queen, but because her story does not indicate that will at all be her ending, they have to prop her up as better then the North to show that they need her to tame them. She can rule the North because she will civilize them.

They won't phrase it that way, but thats what they think.

It's the same thing as Targ stans. They prefer the characters whose values are opposite of the North, and thus to justify some of the worst aspects of their favourites, they talk down about the North to give any credence as to why they are right for thinking their characters are superior.

Which is ironic considering how many of them like characters whose values are closer to the North then they think. They like House Strong and House Blackwood for their pro Targaryean association, when both House Strong and House Blackwood were once actually Northern houses. Their values are rooted in the First Men, not the Andals and certainly not the Valyrians.

These people see the success and popularity of the North as a competetor to their thought that their favourites are superior. So they need to downgrade the North in order to justify putting a Targaryean in charge of it, or a Southern Coded Sansa, to tame them into civility.

They literally treat the North, the way in universe characters look at the wildlings. But with no shred of self awareness about the fact.

It also doesn't help that in order to manufacture tension where it didn't exist before, the show also coded the North as racist. So they feel justified in putting them in their place because they are racist, when literally nothing proves that. It was a writing choice to make Robb Stark marry a woman of colour, and to make Rickard Karstark racist towards her. They made the choice to be racist just to manfufacture tension, and then they did it again in season 6 when the Glovers insinuate Robb marrying a "foreigner" is what killed the North, and in season 8 when Missandei receives negative looks.

There is nothing in the books or even in the actions of the actual characters outside of these moments to suggect these are racist people. It was there, soley to justify having someone subjegate them to civilize these horrible habits of theirs.

They don't have any actual arguments against the North being independant and good, so they cherry pick the worst things to justify themselves.

And because these people like very popular characters, and House of the Dragon has reignited obnoxious pro Targaryean stans, the North has been villanized to justify why they dont deserve to just exist as they already do.

Someone needs to come in and fix them, not realizing how insanely bad that makes these people truly look.

[mutter-of-dragons]

They are reaching SO much trying to insist their shitty ship will have any chance of being canon. Everything - any references to other characters, Jon's actual thoughts about Arya, foreshadowing in text to Jon and Dany meeting in the future - it's all about fucking Sansa in their heads. Imagine claiming you like a character only to ignore ALL of their canon traits from the books (including the ones they dislike it!) and replace with the blandest, self-inserty OC characterization ever so you can pretend you're their only true fans. That's the Jonsas for you.

I've been on a bit of a hiatus but I couldn't resist...

Two questions:

Where to start?

What to emphasize?