#asoiaf continuation

[visenyaism]

Do you think the hotd showrunners are biased towards the blacks? They made such a big deal about the ratcatchers yet no aftermath for rhaenys flattening hundreds of commonfolk during coronation? Where is the outrage after that? The people of kings landing should be cheering to see meleys dead.

Do you think they'll decide not to adapt the negative looking parts for rhaenyra? Like how the iron throne cuts her or how the commonfolk hate her for increased taxes or how she grows paranoid and turns on alyn?

everyone says they’re biased towards one side but i’ve heard both in equal amounts. the tradeoff seems to be the blacks get to be on the right side of narrative herstory while the greens get to be fathomlessly more interesting characters.

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

Underrated reason why Lyanna as the KotLT just works is because it follows a pattern of deconstruction re the concept of knightly chivalry and honor, from Lyanna herself to her son 15yrs+ later. Lyanna as the KotLT is a gender-swapped version of the ‘knight rescues a helpless maiden from raucous bullies’ trope, but grrm of course puts his spin on it because one Lyanna is not even a knight to begin with and two, she’s a girl. Then knight!Lyanna fights the bullies which is again an adaptation of another trope: the ‘mysterious knight-errant enters the joust and wins then dips’, which is interesting because these types of knights sometimes fall into the black knight trope. And the black knight is, more often than not, not the hero. But the main reason why this is so interesting is Jon. Lyanna “cosplays” a black knight, but her son Jon later becomes an actual black knight. Jon then repeats his mother’s actions by defending Sam in AGoT, which is another subversion of the aforementioned ‘knight rescues a helpless maiden trope’ because the helpless maiden in this case is a helpless…lad…Though Jon and Lyanna acting as agents outside the bounds of knighthood (Lyanna being a northern woman and Jon being a member of the NW) puts them more in line with the traditional black knight (who is usually an anti-hero/villain), the actual essence of their actions puts them closer to the more valiant and honorable white knight according to tradition.

[fromtheseventhhell]

If we get a scene of Arya crowning Jon, it needs to parallel the scene of Jon gifting Needle to Arya for me. A personal scene between the two of them that's about their unconditional love for each other. It isn't about Jon becoming King but about Arya supporting him in the same way he supported her. "Girls get the arms but not the swords. Bastards get the swords but not the arms" come full circle with two outcasts supporting each other occupying spaces that society says they can't

[ishouldbeoverfanficsbynow]

"I can fix him" don't you fucking dare! I'm enjoying his dysfunction!

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

‘daenerys will sacrifice herself at the end’ is something i am sick of seeing

this young female character has been set up by george as a very very progressive ruler who is hellbent on on making lasting societal change

a young female ruler who has the power to make this change, a young female ruler who truly cares about her cause

and yet people want her story to end with her death? how would this ending be thematically consistent? how would this ending benefit the common people in any way?

the people spouting this nonsense always prattle on about how the targaryens being in power at the end of the story is just a continuation of the old power structure

as if asoiaf is some black and white story where the old power structure either resumes or there’s going to be some sort of peaceful democracy after the targaryens are gone

like be so ffr

george has always been upfront that he’s interested in the choices of individuals and how his characters choices can shape the world they live in. so why would he throw away this young female ruler who’s currently smashing the slave trade that has been around for thousands of years in order to go for this bland message that her death will mark the end of the previous power structure?

when i put it that way i am astonished by how stupid it sounds

so, if you actually want societal change in westeros and essos then you better pray every single night that daenerys doesn’t die :)

[mummer]

i love the scenario where theon escapes winterfell at the end of clash and joins the watch, just so much. cause like what does he expect. he gets to castle black and it's fucking abandoned for the ranging. he is going through infinite ego death from flopping so bad so he's being even more self obsessed than usual. everyone there hates him for being evil and fashion forward, he hates them for being commoners, the only person he makes friends with is fucking rast or something... but he's a lord's son so it's not like they can do anything about him.... jon comes back but can't retaliate against the alleged child-murdering either because he's a traitor and has no standing. they form an awful uneasy alliance during mance's attack because theon actually is useful with a bow but he's the most STUPID ANNOYING man alive, they're both praying the other dies in battle, doing convoluted shenanigans to arrange this, sticking their feet out to trip each other up, etc. But theyve known each other their whole lives and are the only connection to winterfell they have left so like theres still tension in desperate times maybe. jon continues trying to figure out ways to secretly have him murdered until he becomes LC and then he cant anymore because it'd be bad optics. Well off to eastwatch you go my boy please please please please die. and to his credit theon probably leads the hardhome expedition in an attempt to prove his leadership capabilities and his fervent disbelief in the existence of zombies and then fucking dies of zombies.

[kingsroad]

𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐄? — Ty Tennant & Tom Glynn-Carney as Aegon II Targaryen.

[atopvisenyashill]

why do you think jonsa is happening tho? jonerys is different bc they are going to be enemies, but i don’t see what jonsa does for the story

so let me first lay out roughly what i think is going to happen should jonsa become canon. I personally love going down meta and graphic spirals, so I'm including links to other people’s theories/explanations/graphics of events too - also I would like to shout out @istumpysk because half these metas and gifsets were stuff I found on their blog initially, and also was the one who really convinced me that jonsa is less of a crackship and more of a contender for an actual canon theory, and from there i really found my niche in this fandom. specifically this meta about jon being the mummer's dragon is what pulled me out of my "we're never getting twow and if we do it's just gonna be that stupid dany has jon's magical baby while tyrion watches, then they all die theory" slump and lit my brain on fire again. let's goooo:

The Ashford Tourney Theory - Something Shady goes down at the tourney Petyr has planned that requires Sansa to make a quick getaway, and likely causes her to run into Brienne while fleeing. This theory for me is about hinting at Sansa's romantic future, allies, and how she's getting the hell out of the Vale: both the dark haired, Not Targ Looking Targ Prince that is the son of A Great Prince That Never Was being her romantic endgame but also it's about Brienne (/Dunk) getting her the hell out of there and becoming Sansa's number one ally and protector (with Sansa's number two being Bronze Yohn!! But he's not fleeing with her - if he helps her get out of the Vale, it'll be to cause a distraction or a fight so Sansa can slip away unnoticed. Bronze Yohn is coming with the knights of the Vale later to help defend his girl!).

The Girl In Grey - Out of options on where to go, Sansa & Brienne makes a long, fast, and dangerous trek to the only family she knows is still alive: Jon Snow at the Wall. No, I don't think Alys Karstark is the girl in grey on a dying horse; I think she's a red herring, the same as the scene where Sweetrobin destroys the snow castle, and that the real girl in grey (who slays the savage giant) is Sansa. Melisandre says that she sees "Jon's sister" but doesn't specify more than that, or how she knows it's Jon's sister, even - why would she assume Alys is Jon's sister and not some random Northern girl? Why was she so sure that it was his sister? It's because Alys isn't the girl in grey, it's Sansa, her horse dying because she's traveled halfway across the continent with Brienne and Pod, desperately trying to keep ahead of the dozens of people hunting her down.

The Blood of Winterfell - Sansa and Jon will reclaim winterfell together. This one is similar to above; just like Alys was a red herring, the scene where Sansa rebuilds the castle has a lot of foreshadowing (imo) but that isn't the moment in the prophecy Arya hears. The Savage Giant is Littlefinger, the castle of snow is Winterfell, and Sansa is going to liberate her home alongside Jon and what's left of the Northern lords.

Stone and Snow Remains - THIS is where Sansa and Jon will fall in love while fighting for the North. This is also the part where you lose a lot of people, because they think the evidence is real weak sauce but like, I also think the Jonerys "evidence" is weak af too (and no wonder, we have at minimum 2k pages left to get through!!). There's several believed foreshadowing points to this one, bare with me for this weird ass formatting because I can't do sub bullet points on tumblr:

1. Sansa's linking of snow with love and affection - "drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses, and melted on her cheeks...She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams." along with her snow maiden and snow knight.

2. Bael the Bard and the Rose of Winterfell - the chapter where Sansa gets her period for the first time, Cersei refers to it as “flowering” a dozen times, linking being a maiden (a young girl, not quite of age or just barely of age) to flowers and several people refer to sex as ~plucking. Also notice the one who stole her from KL is Lord BAELish.

3. Aemon the Dragonknight & Queen Naerys - Sansa compares herself to Naerys, Joffrey to Aegon, and wishes for an Aemon, among the many similarities between her life and Naerys'. Jon not only calls himself Aemon, he has a deep connection with a different Aemon Targaryen. And if you’re thinking “Sansa isn’t Naerys, X is Naerys” I would remind you that Sansa as a character existed first, George purposefully had her compare herself to Naerys, and parallels don't belong to just one character.

4. Jenny of Oldstones and The Prince of Dragonflies - there's honestly a lot of parallels between them but like the Aemon/Naerys parallel, the Jenny/Duncan one stands out to me.

5. Janos Slynt - I mean. Iconic. This was the scene that made me first think about what their relationship could be in the future and there’s a reason Jonsas fixate on it. It’s about Sansa being desperate for a hero and the hero she dreamed about being Jon the whole time. 6. Societal Alienation - There's the bastard parallels here, the "it would be so sweet to see him again", the "Winterfell belongs to my sister, Sansa." It's about how Jon, through circumstances of his birth, finds himself alienated from the rest of society and reconnects with his prim and proper sister Sansa, who finds herself alienated from the rest of society as well but for vastly different reasons.

Robb’s Will - Howland is going to show up in the North, along with Maege and Galbert, with some WILD news about why Jon can’t rule Winterfell. There’s a lot of contention around this. Bran probably shows up around this time too, and Arya gets to the Riverlands to discover Lady Stoneheart and give her the gift of mercy. This is where all the inheritance stuff is going to happen and I have no idea how it's going to go down besides it's going to be messy as all fuck.

The Pact Of Ice And Fire - Jon & Sansa get secret married bc they’re in love, not siblings, & jon is the only man she trusts not to steal her claim. This isn't the only possible foreshadowing instance of a marriage either - some believe the Sandor/Sansa scene during the Battle of the Blackwater is foreshadowing as well (personally I feel that's a bit of a stretch but I wanted to include it anyway).

Jon As An Envoy - I talked about this in my "what's Jon's ending" a little but I believe Jon will act as an envoy for either Sansa or Bran to Aegon VI, essentially playing out a similar story that he does in the show with Daenerys. By which I mean, Jon is not the King because the ruler themselves do not go as an envoy, that’s stupid and dangerous, but he goes as an ambassador for Sansa or Bran, to treat with a new claimant to the Iron Throne that is gaining support - Aegon VI & Jon Connington. They will probably clash, Jon will probably have yet another identity crisis, there had BETTER be gay incest subtext, then Aegon dies, and Jon has his sixth quarter life crisis in a row.

“King” of the Gift - again, something I touched on in my Jon meta is that I think he’s going to have a hand in resettling the Gift. Personally, I think it's likely that Jon leaves to protect the claims of his siblings (see: Duncan and Jenny) and goes to the Gift to help resettle it to keep out of the way. This ending is typically referred to as the "bael the bard" ending but i like to think of it as the "brandon's gift" ending instead - though he is not physically with his family, Jon feels fulfilled having confirmed his family loves him through reclaiming Winterfell and marrying Sansa, being reunited with Arya, and being given the Gift by Bran. Sansa claims her children were fathered by a wolf.

So…what does all this do for the story?

Well, in my opinion, several things.

I think the main barrier here is that most people in the greater fandom describe Sansa's story as ~growing past childish wants~ and Jon's as ~rejecting love~ and I do not agree with either of those takes even a little bit. This is where (imo) the dividing line between Jonsas and the rest of the fandom is. I don’t think the answer to Sansa’s question “will anyone ever marry me for love” is going to be “nah" - that's not just a sad story to me (wanting to be married isn't childish! craving intimacy and understanding isn't childish! it's also not wrong for a child to be childish!), I think the idea that Sansa (or Jon) will not find another love just doesn't line up with how George approaches his story. Who Sansa's husband will be has been such a big question, and her story is so heavy into the more romantic tropes like courtly love and chivalry and the line between politics and love and identity, that the question of Sansa's hand in marriage will be plot relevant. I also think it's kinda naive of people to pretend like George isn't very interested in the sexual dynamics of the characters he writes about (yeah, sure, no woman needs a man but "needing a man" is not what this is about. look at everything this man wrote in F&B and tell me he is going to write a female character that longs for sex and desire and doesn't get it!).

After AGOT, nearly every time Sansa thinks about marriage involves her longing for love but believing she will never get it because a man will only ever love her for her claim. Giving her a man - like Jon - who not only will not steal her claim and in fact has defended it twice over already, who will love her for who she is and not what she can give him, is a really important aspect of her story in my opinion.

As for Jon, I am even more firmly against the opinion that his story is about rejecting love; Jon’s story is about wanting to be a good man, to measure up to his father ~despite~ his bastard blood. When Aemon asks if Ned would choose honor over love and Jon stubbornly says yes, Jon is wrong and it’s important to not forget that. Ned has never once in his entire life chosen honor over love; he chooses his daughter’s life over his honor, he chooses his sister & her son’s life over honor, he chooses Arya & Nymeria over honor, and on and on!!! Ned chooses love at almost turn but none of his children know that just yet - look at Robb choosing Jeyne’s honor over his own and how upset he is at the idea that Ned would be disappointed despite the fact that Ned would have understand Robb’s decision! Jon's whole arc is tied up in realizing that it is not wrong or dirty to feel and choose love, passion, and desire and if he never has another romantic arc again, I think you lose the second part of that lesson which is "you are responsible for how you act when you feel love but that doesn't mean that simply choosing love makes you a bad person."

There's also the fact that George has talked a lot about "who lives, who dies, who gets married" and yet we have not one marriage at the end of the show AND there's not a lot of guesses at what "who gets married" means besides Jon/erys (and even if Jonsa doesn't happen, I simply do not see Jon/erys happening. they are not similar enough, they will not be in the same space for long enough, and they are on wildlly different trajectories for their story, they are not getting married let alone having sex). I think Jonsa fits that bill very well.

These various theories - from Sansa being queen, Jon living in exile, The Ashford Tourney Theory, the secret marriage, every one of them - are ideas and themes that I have really been thinking about for about 12 years now. I think Jon and Sansa's relationship could fit with the themes in their stories, the overarching themes in the books, and my own personal opinions. I think it gives George a great opportunity to delve into the courtly love aspects he enjoys so much, as well as delve into inheritance, legacy, legitimacy, honor, incest (yes, that too), and above all, what George himself has said the whole series is about - love. The human heart in conflict with itself is what I think Jon and Sansa as a romantic couple does for the series.

[crazy-dane-art]

"He was no true knight," she whispered to him.

[addamvelaryon]

POST CANON AU: Addam & Ben reunion after 8 years

After surviving the Battle of Tumbleton, Addam spends several years recovering at the Isle of Faces while his brother serves as the de facto Lord of Driftmark in his place. The Green Men prohibit all entry to outsiders, but on the day Addam prepares to return home, Ben is allowed to visit him.

Artist: Adacta Aries

[long-claw]

minor fire and blood spoilers:

ik fire and blood is meant to be ambiguous at points but there's no way people actually believe daemon didn't have an affair with nettles just because "he treated her like a daughter" considering this is the same man that had an affair with his teenage niece. they were having fucking baths together like come on 😭

daemon saw himself as her father- HE MARRIED. HIS NIECE.

[daeneryseastar]

quick how shocking is it that an alicent stan is claiming that DAENERYS of all people isn’t an ‘actual mother’ and that her only children are her ‘fur babies’ and how DARE she be included in a mother’s day post?

she’s the mother of dragons (they were extinct for over a hundred years, she dreams of her hatching them by walking into a great fire, literally breastfeeds them as if they were her own), she’s ‘mhysa’ to the freedmen AND missandei, she became pregnant at 13 after being routinely raped for months and gave birth to a stillborn son. a baby she wanted so desperately, and it’s disingenuous and nasty af to reduce the bonds she’s procured with her dragons, the people she’s freed from their shackles, and her actual dead child(ren, maybe, bc she might have had a miscarriage at the end of adwd) to ‘can’t stand a fur baby bitch’ i am in your fucking walls.

i forget though, the only women deserving of sympathy in universe need to be given made up rape and abuse storylines in order for their suffering to count. not the THIRTEEN YEAR OLD who was sold into slavery, married off against her will to a 30 year old warlord, raped repeatedly to the point she wanted to die; along with being sexually exploited and physically abused by her brother, the only living family member she had left. they also need to be a white red headed woman who’s either an abusive piece of shit or a massive ungrateful xenophobe. i hope you have that same energy when a real life person loses their baby, make sure to tell them that because their kid is dead they can’t call themselves a parent anymore.

[faircastle]

@gameofthronesdaily​ event 01: favorite character ↪ catelyn tully;

On my honor as a Tully, on my honor as a Stark.

[gromlyn]

[lady-corrine]

[jessescatorccio]

why is it that alicent and sansa are given the interiority no one ever has for rhaenyra and dany. why are they the long-suffering chessmasters while rhaenyra and dany are the warmongering power hungry whores. as though rhaenyra and dany have not suffered at all and are not intelligent or have any political savvy. like bffr