#asoiaf deaths

[pendovah]

“Oberyn wanted vengeance for Elia. Now the three of you want vengeance for him. I have four daughters, I remind you. Your sisters. […] If you should die, must El and Obella seek vengeance for you, then Dorea and Loree for them? Is that how it goes, round and round forever? I ask again, where does it end?” Ellaria Sand laid her hand on the Mountain’s head. “I saw your father die. Here is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me, to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh, write me songs, care for me when I am old and sick?” - A Dance with Dragons, The Watcher

[cynicalclassicist]

Yeh, welcome to being in the ASOIAF fandom!

And then we get to how Game of Thrones killed off characters like Stannis...

It's been nearly a decade and I'm still annoyed about it!

there’s a big difference between “i’m sad because a character i was emotionally invested in was killed off” and “this character’s death served no purpose, was used for shock value, and is the product of bad writing and i’m upset about that”

[vintrage]

least broody 14-year-old, actually

[westerosiladies]

[bastardofharrenhal]

i think its so funny that cersei thinks of catelyn as a meek little mouse in her povs when its like. that woman bashed a man's head in with a rock. she grabbed a valyrian steel blade without hesitation. she traveled across westeros to form an alliance with renly only to steal one of his kingsguard too. she set jaime free from the dungeons and got him to swear to get her daughters back. even in her last chapter she shanked a mf with a knife before going insane. catelyn stark was more of a lioness than cersei im sorry to say

[0zeeraa0]

I will defend them with my life

[helaenarts]

"No one ever looked for a girl, it was a prince that was promised, not a princess.

What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise,

Dragons are neither male nor female, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame.

Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it."

[greenbloods]

love how both tywin and ned are genre definingly different from the predecessors from their houses. lannisters have always been the clever house, from lann the clever swindling casterly rock to tyland lannister splitting kings landing's treasury. but tywin's 'low cunning' and use of brutal crushing military force to solve his problems which he employs in the reyne-tarbeck rebellion and the scouring of the riverlands and the red wedding is different from the historical version of house lannister. it's a new brand of lannisterism, tywin's version, and it is this version of lannister legacy that he passes on to his children.

ned on the other hand very much likes to distance himself from the stark features of the wild and the wolf's blood, which other starks like brandon and rickard and cregan and even lyanna are defined by, adopting instead an ethos of duty and honor more like the tully words or his foster father jon arryn. he does this because he thinks that it is this wolf's blood that killed them in the end. just like the lannister kids contend with their father's idea of a good lannister, the starklings contend with their father's idea of a good stark.

[ladyrunestone]

Let the kings of winter have their cold crypt under the earth, Catelyn thought. The Tullys drew their strength from the river, and it was to the river they returned when their lives had run their course. ~ Catelyn IV, ASOS

[p4prbag]

I don't like things casually, instead I let it consume my entire being.

[tweedfrog]

The maester propaganda thing has gone too far let it go I beg you because why the hell did I just see a video that claimed Maegor actually was loyal to his family and all the bad things written about him were lies by biased maesters

[vintrage]

motherless, friendless, and damned

[polari]

Frustrated, Arya threw down the brush. “Bad wolf!” she shouted. Sansa couldn’t help but smile a little. The kennelmaster once told her that an animal takes after its master.

—Sansa II, A Game of Thrones

“You’re a good girl, Sansa, but I do vow, when it comes to that creature you’re as willful as your sister Arya.”

—Sansa II, A Game of Thrones

“My daughter often forgets her courtesies,” Eddard Stark said with a faint smile that softened his words.

—Arya III, A Game of Thrones

“A royal wheelhouse is no place for a wolf,” Sansa said. [...] She turned to walk off, but Arya shouted after her, “They won’t let you bring Lady either.” She was gone before Sansa could think of a reply, chasing Nymeria along the river.

—Sansa II, A Game of Thrones

Sansa dropped to her knees to wrap her arms around the wolf. They were all gathered around gaping, she could feel their eyes on her, and here and there she heard muttered comments and titters of laughter. “A wolf,” a man said, and someone else said, “Seven hells, that’s a direwolf,” and the first man said, “What’s it doing in camp?” and the Hound’s rasping voice replied, “The Starks use them for wet nurses,” and Sansa realized that the two stranger knights were looking down on her and Lady, swords in their hands, and then she was frightened again, and ashamed.

—Sansa II, A Game of Thrones

“No,” she said. “No, not Lady, Lady didn’t bite anybody, she’s good…”

—Eddard VII, A Game of Thrones

She woke murmuring, “Please, please, I’ll be good, I’ll be good, please don’t,” but there was no one to hear.

—Sansa VI, A Game of Thrones

“Send Arya away, she started it, Father, I swear it. I’ll be good, you’ll see, just let me stay and I promise to be as fine and noble and courteous as the queen.”

—Sansa III, A Game of Thrones

The queen had given her freedom of the castle as a reward for being good,

—Sansa V, A Game of Thrones

“Stop them,” Sansa pleaded, “don’t let them do it, please, please, it wasn’t Lady, it was Nymeria, Arya did it, you can’t, it wasn’t Lady, don’t let them hurt Lady, I’ll make her be good, I promise, I promise…”

—Eddard VII, A Game of Thrones

“[...] What’s wrong with the girl?” Bran felt all cold inside. “She lost her wolf,” he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father’s guardsmen had returned from the south with Lady’s bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned.

—Bran VI, A Game of Thrones

She was a good girl, and always remembered her courtesies.

—Sansa VI, A Game of Thrones

[jon-sedai]

Rhaegar Targaryen is easily one of GRRM’s best deconstructions of the genre and we don’t talk about it enough. He’s prince living in a world full of magic and wonder that has dwindled over time. His own family had a great monopoly on one of the most magical phenomena (dragons) to ever exist, but they lost this control over time and it was due to their own faults. But there’s an all encompassing hope that this magic, these dragons, will come back. They all live within the promise that it will all be back and with a huge bang. It’s all so romantic. Magical forces of ice and fire battling it out in a song.

Then there’s Rhaegar, a prince born for the sole purpose of being this song’s romantic hero. He already has his destiny mapped out and it will be a great one, greater than any other man who ever lived. It’s a song of ice and fire, and Rhaegar is its bard. You’d expect this to give him joy. Yet by all accounts, he was depressed as fuck. I think he’s unfairly earned the reputation of having an ego so big to think that he will be the hero….but that’s quite literally the point of his existence. He was born to be the hero. He paid the price at birth to be the hero. How can he revel and glory in this destiny when he has no say in it?

So it’s genuinely funny that when given the chance, Rhaegar immediately pivots to someone else taking on this burden. But how tragic for him that he cannot escape it too far. Because it will be none other than his own son who, under a “bleeding star”, is marked at conception for this great destiny without a say. More than his ego, Rhaegar is marked by the inability to escape this duty. His whole life is dedicated to fulfilling a duty he can never escape. He isn’t just a future king, prophecy dictates that the world’s survival is placed squarely on his shoulders. Even when he isn’t the hero, he’s now responsible for raising him…

…but then he makes one decision and it all comes crumbling like a pack of biscuits. He escapes this burden…but dies. And his successor dies too. And now the ones who will inherit his legacy are two people who never knew him. They never knew of his burdens, of this prophecy. But they too cannot escape its jaws. I think this does bring up some interesting questions about the nature of fate and destiny in the world of ice and fire. Can you really escape it? Rhaegar tried to, and paid the price for his defiance, but he never truly made it out because the burden instead jumped to the son (and sister) he never knew. Funny thing is that in a bizarre (and tragic, in its own way) twist of fate, this son was brought up entirely without the trappings of power that depressed Rhaegar. Rhaegar was a dazzling prince, Jon is a bastard. Rhaegar was marked by his great inheritance, Jon is marked by the lack thereof. Does fate say “well the first one got too depressed by having too much so let’s give the next one nothing?” Even Dany, who grows up a princess does not have the privileges that Rhaegar did. So how does upbringing craft a hero and the choices they make? Welll, GRRM had given us two versions of Rhaegar’s tragedy in Jon and Dany for us to see.

Rhaegar’s impact on the meta-narrative is honestly so massive. Like I’d put him right up there with Quentyn, Sansa, and Bran as one of the best genre deconstructions in the series and no one can tell me otherwise.

[wandas-hands]

She can feel the love, the reverence in his tone.

[malleefies]

King Aegon III and Lady Myrielle Peake, three days before the Maiden's Day Ball I see a lot of (deserved) Unwin Peake hate but not enough love for Lady Turnips. She's my daughter i'm adopting her