#anyway those kids (gendrya) are so important to me and i absolutely despise what they did to them

[pixiecactus]

another thing that i've seen that is very popular in fandom spaces when people talk about gendrya and really irks me is:

people seem to have this impression that gendry can't actually stand arya or being around her pretty much, but he doesn't have any other choice, so he stays around her. honestly, this time i blame the "pain in my ass" line and the fact that in the show, i don't get the impression that there ever was a friendship between them, just an older boy alongside a little child, with said older boy being angry to be put in the position of being that child's caretaker (even when said child directly saved his life)

because in the books even when gendry was the angriest he has ever been at arya back in harrenhal, after the weasel soup (if i remember correctly) there still was a sense of trust lying underneath their interactions, still a "us vs. them" feeling and connection that was important to both of them.

also doesn't really make sense to me that the time when they decided to show us that gendry doesn't trust highborns and nobility and how he dislikes them altogether was after stannis incarcerated him.

(i want to go on a tangent about the melissandre/gendry fiasco, but at the same time i don't want to, but what you have to know about my position in this is that i am deeply disappointed. i think that book!gendry would have been a lot more distrustful about mel showing interest in him, also, book!gendry doesn't actually think with his cock, and that makes him very different from practically 90% of the male westerosi population. i'm not trying to say that show!gendry was to blame for what happened to him, but rather highlight a distinction between the two versions of gendry we got.

this is going to sound a little weird, but i think that melissandre assaulting gendry was an excellent opportunity to show that sexual assault can happen to anyone. and yes. men get raped too; if you actually disagree with that statement, i don't know what to tell you... sexual assault is not a crime of passion and desire; it is about a person asserting power over their victim. and if i remember correctly, gendry at the start of all this was consenting, and the production had another great opportunity to show a large audience that in any sexual act you can revoke consent at any given time... and what we actually got was other characters later on mocking the fact that gendry was sexually assaulted by a woman because he was a man, which makes me want to tear my hair off!)

coming back to the point i wanted to make was, after this, we see gendry going "i hate those bitches (highborns) and all of them suck ass."

...

what about that little girl who was part of the nobility that saved your life once and cared for your well-being? is this supposed to be unimportant because she had a dumb crush on you and that was her only motivation?

i think that their book's counterpart both shared a "this person is different from the rest" moment with book!arya we were able to read that exact sentence in the text. and for book!gendry i think that sentiment is shown with the devotion he still has for his friend, even after they got separated.

also have you seen how book!gendry behaves around other girls who aren't arya, the boy is fucking rude to all of them. is like no other girl can compare to arya in his mind (only arya was different... amirite, gendry?) and that's so important to me, important enough to make this post.

instead in the show we got a gendry that seems to have completely forgotten about this little kid called arya, because she wasn't important at all until she appeared in the winterfell's forge, and then he couldn't ignore her anymore because she was right in front of him.

i don't have the link, but honorary mention to that post on tumblr that shows how in the books, the period of time where gendry most smiled and laughed was during his time with arya.