#asoiaf thesis statement

[greenbloods]

jeyne says she's arya of house stark, but she's really jeyne: to everyone around her, she's an upjumped smallfolk, a nobody. arya says she's nobody but she's not, she's arya of house stark. but neither matters over the other simply because of their name: they both matter. everyone matters.

[visenyaism]

Thinking about Bran being told the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree and the Reeds constantly going, "Are you SURE your dad didn't tell you this story? It's pretty much a hint to the biggest mystery of the series. No? Lmao couldn't be me."

i love the little moments with bran and the reeds where the reeds will just completely break the fourth wall and turn to look and me the reader and say this is really important these stories we’re telling are the hinges the story you’re reading is on!!! they know

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

This fandom has a disturbing sense of entitlement when it comes to GRRM and his remaining two books. There’s this horrifying lack of empathy towards this man and it’s genuinely scary. People expect him to be like one of those elves from Harry Potter: he just has to turn his magic on and churn out brand new content, who gives a fuck what is going on in his life? Let me remind the audience that this is a guy in his 70s! Yes, he’s rich. But age and its complications bow to nothing. Not to mention that even if his age wasn’t a factor, he could still be dealing with a lot of mental distress that ANY human would? Do you know how deranged you have to be to say that he cannot be affected by losing a close friend? That he, and his writing, cannot be affected by the state of the world? This is a man whose core thesis statement in his work is, “I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things”. One of the core protagonists in this series has dedicated her entire arc to fighting institutional slavery. One another protagonist has spent five books unlearning bigotry and trying to reform institutions that operate on it. ASOIAF fictionalizes real world issues. And to get there, GRRM has to take note of it and then make commentary on it. Like do people listen to themselves??? What is wrong with this fandom dear god…

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

of course it’s an alicent profile pic saying this shit:

the thing is, i would’ve agreed with the original sentiment of this post if it wasn’t for the tags, but then this person goes mask off and proves to me that they were only pretending to offer meaningful criticism.

cause all i see in these tags is buzzword 🗣️🗣️ buzzword 🗣️🗣️ buzzword 🗣️🗣️

i just wanna know, why are the targaryens always singled out as the house that ‘regularly cannibalizes its own?’

these don’t exist ig: the she-wolves of winterfell, the current lannisters, and literally every House ever.

why are the targaryens held to such an unfair standard? and why are they held responsible for the sins of their ancestors?

it is literally so funny. but like… in an astonishing kind of way.

in these tags there’s no objective language used 🙅‍♀️ no care for nuance 🙅‍♀️ and no meaningful interaction with the main themes of the series 🙅‍♀️

OP kind of tries to pretend, but it’s all surface level shit. it’s clear that they’re blinded by their hatred of the targs and dany.

because george never holds things his characters can’t control against them. what a character should be judged by is their actions, and imo, that’s what george writes about: how individual characters actions and choices can shape the world around them (bonus if the character is a cripple, bastard, or broken thing and is trying to protect others); and he also puts a lot of emphasis on a characters intentions and how they come to their decisions, which gets us his famous ‘human heart in conflict with itself’ thesis statement.

george, someone who’s interested in the choices of the individual and how they get there, clearly thinks it’s important to showcase how different characters handle great power, otherwise he wouldn’t have so many POV characters in positions of such great importance.

on that note, asoiaf isn’t an anti-monarchy piece. you could easily claim that it’s a criticism of systematic oppression, systematic violence, corrupt institutions, and unbalanced social structures; it’s a sort of think piece on how people in positions of power destroy the lives of the common in their petty fights of greed and ambition, all whilst ignoring the incoming humanity ending threat.

and through this thought process, you get the title of the first book: a game of thrones. the political shifts are a game for these powerful people, and this motif is one of the most important statements to understand in order to interact with the series discussion on what it means to be a good ruler. this motif also comes up in a conversation jorah and dany have about the smallfolk: “It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. They never are.” it’s high lords, not royals. it’s a critique of the whole social structure and political system, not a criticism of one family.

so, if you’re of this belief that petty power disputes are dumb and are angry that most high lords don’t give a shit about their subjects, then you should love daenerys, who’s one of the few characters who’s using her power to make lasting societal change.

now, is she perfect? no. no she’s not. cause she’s a teenage girl trying to take down a slave trade that’s been around for thousands of years (hilarious that she’s actually fixing the mistakes of her ancestors…). but dany is learning and is doing her best to get better and is trying to empower the powerless. that sets her apart from almost every other ruler in asoiaf and makes her one of the most important POVs in this book series quest to find out what makes a good ruler. something something gods make kings and queens to protect those who can’t protect themselves…

with that in mind, i agree that the conclusion of the series won’t be a character sitting on a throne because of their blood or because of some divine right mumbo jumbo. imo, a character will only sit on a throne if they’ve been smart, gained allies, formed alliances, have control of an army, have gained loyalty from the people they wish to rule, have been honorable, maybe have a dragon or three, and are a hero.

dany has checked off almost all the boxes, so i think it’s safe to root for her. and considering the foreshadowing, i think it’s logical to guess that peace will be ushered in, even if it’s a hard won peace. and what’s wrong with believing that daenerys will be one of the ones who helps usher in this peace after all the work she’s done to protect those who don’t have the power to protect themselves?

[atopvisenyashill]

if you could erase one popular fanon interpretation from the asoiaf fandom forever, what would it be?

just one 😭😭😭😭

i would love to erase the entire concept of the key five. it’s so dismissive of literally every character outside of those five, but also of bran bc ya kno, no one ever focuses in on him bc they always bitch that he’s king, it’s just about a made up version of arya dany tyrion and jon they have in their minds with bran stuck behind the wall forever and ever so as not to challenge the special magical ness of arya jon or dany. it’s really poisoned the discourse imo which poisons the theorizing. it’s also just a stupid way of engaging with the series - part of the fun of all the au scenarios is like, you take one character out and the whole plot collapses. which feels like one of the points of the series - what is one boy’s to a kingdom? everything!! yeah OBVIOUSLY some characters get more focus than others but when the thesis statement of the series is that every life is important and worth saving, it’s so goofy to be like “anyways these five dudes are the only characters that are relevant.” do we remember what jaime was like in the draft 😭😭 there’s been some changes!!

[ilynpilled]

just in! tumblr user ilynpilled okay with conflating beauty and morality when it comes to pokemon go, directly contradicting one of the asoiaf thesis statements, and therefore must be cancelled posthaste.

​i hope those ugly pokemon get put down

[mormontdacey]

one asoiafism i love is when random side characters fall out of the sky to deliver essential characterization or a series thesis statement. for example, donal noye with the baratheon read of all time:

“robert was the true steel. stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle… he’ll break before he bends. and renly, that one, he’s copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day.” —george r.r. martin, a clash of kings, pp. 75

clock it!

[daenystheedreamer]

ok wanna make it clear that i am not a super serious meta/analysis account. i have a very strict canon/fanon separation in my brain like.. for example. theon and asha are straight in canon and i dont disagree with this because its what grrm said. jaehaerys is supposed to be a good king and bad father he's not supposed to be the devil. its not even an up for interpretation thing because in my brain the books are the bible i follow it to the letter. So when i talk about characters and ships and whatever like that is from the asoiaf in my head. it is whatever is funny to me in the ten seconds i think about it i am not serious at all. these are not genuine thesis statements. it is slash j

[dialux]

hey! are you still giving director cuts for fics? cause i would really really love one on the Ghosts AU--both of them, if at all possible, cause they're some of my favourite asoiaf fics of all time <33 :DD

I am ALWAYS down to talk about my fic lol but VERY SPECIFICALLY these two because. Like. I finished tempest ages ago and wanted that to be a vvv self-contained story. It was over and done with. I was done!!! And then 2023 started and I was like: Maybe Not Lol.

So like, Tempest was totally just about women, right? It's about forgotten women, dead women, and legacies not wholly lost; what can be done in a world by a girl who is kind, loves her family, and can see the dead? Quite a lot! Apparently! It's the Tyrion quote -- We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance in our steads. -- but made real and honest and in-your-face, because there is no "before us," just what we have here and now, even when we think we have nothing.

And of course so much of that story is tied up in legacies, in living up to your family's expectations, in righting your family's wrongs, in doing better than those that came before you. But the ending that I knew I had to write-- because I believed it, because it mattered to me-- was one where that wasn't the ending. Because life cannot be lived for others, no matter if they're our ancestors or our friends: Sansa sends her dead family beyond the circles of this world and it's a triumphant moment for her even as it wounds her irreparably, because she is no longer bound to their desires, to anything other than her own memory and her own choices.

Enter Burn. God. This story was wholly and entirely conceived by me seeing HOTD and going "WHYYYY DO WE CAREEEEEEEE" and then being like "No Actually This Sucks. Let Me Write Almost 70k On Why." And THEN I was like "what if I resolved the Stark family issues in the first 50k and wrote another 70k on the Targ issues. What Then." And I spent five chapters torturing Jon Snow because he annoys me A Lot (insert joke on dia being the 21st century alliser thorne), talking about how civilizations founded on slavery/supremacy rhetoric aren't, yk, INSPIRATIONAL, and underling in bold red pen the idea that asoiaf culture is inherently fucked and cannot be saved except by walking away from it, Omelas-style. Idk if that comes through! But jeeeeeeeesus was that totes my specific thesis statement

[thelaughingtree]

all great houses are tragic in their own ways but my read on doran is a classic 'putting future ambition ahead of immediate consequences' in a way that will (almost!) kill house martell. his decades-long plot to lead to a martell & targaryen restoration has eclipsed the actual needs of his children - we see this in arianne's PoVs where she's led to really stupid, reckless behaviour in lieu of any honesty. quentyn died trying to tame a dragon (viserion). arianne will most likely also die trying to tame a dragon (griff). trystane seems like the only child who could survive, but given his betrothal to myrcella, i would not be surprised if the two of them end up dying together in some romeo & juliet tragic elopement attempt after doran attempts to break that off and set trystane up with someone in daenerys' favour, if not daenerys herself.

given elia's line is all dead, where will that leave the martells? the enduring legacy will be oberyn's children - the four sand snakes, and his children with his paramour ellaria. it's possible that if no one is legitimised that the house name might die, but given that sand snakes are most likely being positioned to be involved in some really interesting power plays next book (see: alleras in the citadel, tyene by cersei's side), they might live up to the spirit of house martell far better than arianne, quentyn, & trystane, who are all lambs for the slaughter. i feel that highlights a core thesis statement of asoiaf - that the achievements of the low and bastard born are not worth any less than trueborn nobility, and can sometimes be be nobler and more valuable in purpose than what the actual nobility do: play the game of thrones, which itself is a game that ends largely in death and misery.

[greenbloods]

and then people pretended like only the first part of the thesis existed!! like yes the text acknowledges the world is dark and bleak at times! but you forgot the but!!! you forgot that it argues for the arthurian sword at sunset, for the true knight--maybe not in shining armor, but true nonetheless. there is a point to all this after all. that we can be better. the world may be broken but hope is not crazy!!!!!

crazy how for all its pages the central thesis of asoiaf boils down to this pretty much

[visenyaism]

asoiaf thesis statement

[grennseyelashes]

Can I nitpick for one second.

"Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you."

☝️ Not an ASOIAF thesis statement, just a Tyrion one. Owning who you are is a good call if you hate yourself, as Tyrion does and Jon did (to a much lesser degree), but it never takes away others ability to hurt you for it, so "cutting off your nose to spite your face" like that is terrible advice from our good friend Mr. Literally Gets His Nose Cut Off.

Once he's gotten over the teen angst of it all Jon is able to act and do good only when he does forget who he is, and getting tragically merked doesn't change that. Tyrion's thing is about feeling like he's "winning" against people, nothing more. And even then it's proven false.

[hylialeia]

still thinking about it and I’m increasingly more convinced that the changes GOT made to Shae were ultimately only compelling by accident (well, by accident and by Sibil Kekilli’s performance) because they ultimately stemmed from a misunderstanding of Tyrion’s storyline and a desire to give him a tragic love story, to the detriment of both his AND Shae’s show characters

[guerrilla-gorilla]

This post is infuriating to me because it overlooks the largest problems with asoiaf and grrms work: racism and pedophilia.

The biggest issue with grrm claiming historical accuracy is that the dothraki and vast majority of non white cultures in asoiaf are straight up racist charicatures. Grrm is on record saying the dothraki are based on the mongols and native Americans, a statement that should set off every alarm bell you have. Not only did he combine a ton of wildly disparate cultures, he also flattened them to be rapey monsters utterly devoid of art and culture.

The aragorn's tax policies thing is essentially a thesis statement for why grrm wrote asoiaf: the idea that just because a man is a noble and heroic figure doesn't mean he is an effective political executive. It's not even close to the biggest problem with the work. Aragorn is a great character for being gentle and kind and an everyman, but he's also a wish-fulfillment avatar for why the divine right of kings is good. Grrm, for all his tons and tons of issues, isn't wrong to poke holes in this.

Also let's talk more about the ahistorical pedophilia! By all means let's keep making fun of the ludicrous logistics, the fact that the series is billed as """historically accurate""", the fact that tuf voyaging and grrms other works show he is a misanthropic pessimist, but the biggest problems in the series here- the incredibly gross voreustic pedophilia and the blatant racism- go unaddressed while everyone makes fun of the legitimate urge to analyze why aragorn is a feudal wish-fulfillment fantasy with no basis in reality.

Someone over on Discord asked, "I'm morbidly curious: How BAD is A Song of Ice and Fire in terms of the authenticity George claims it to be?"

My reply was straightforward:

The long and the short of it is that ASOIAF is basically a vehicle for GRRM to present both his rape fetish and his Hobbesian view on human nature and has less historical accuracy than Frozen or most other Disney movies.

That's actually a good way to think of it, now that I've said it--he's Family Unfriendly, they're Family Friendly, but both have the same relationship with History: just Pure Aesthetic with no consideration for how the worldbuilding would work.

[mummer]

also. this is stannis and davos’ idea of justice. the fingers and the knighthood both. most people are good and bad all at once. good does not wash out the bad and vice versa. what could it mean. hurgling