#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.

[branwinged]

"dragons plant no trees" gets thrown around a lot as fact, but i think the veracity of that claim is still up for debate in the books. because dany (like bran and jon and many others) is a narrative symbol of hope and rebirth within the series because of her connection to dragons and fire, not in spite of it. this is because dragons in asoiaf have a much more expansive narrative function than simply 'nuke metaphor'. the 'exclusively weapons of war' image they have acquired breaks down immediately if you recall that the first thing dany does with them is begin dismantling an unjust status quo. she rallies the unsullied at the gates of astapor with cries of dracarys! dracarys! freedom! <- dragons as a symbol of hope and freedom for the persecuted. and obviously they've been built up as an oppositional force against the others. we're told when the last dragon died summers became shorter. in that respect the dragons, or more specifically, fire which is warmth which is passion—very much embodies life against the numbing, deadening threat of eternal winter that the others represent. but fire also consumes, which simultaneously makes dragons agents of destruction, or as adwd shows: the monsters who eat little girls and leave behind their bones. but when dany found herself chained to a false peace which effectively undid her cause in meereen, it was the dragon that rescued her and reignited her fire to fight back—which is to say that dragons represent a wealth of contradictions within the text and this is likely something grrm means to parallel with the others to some extent, by questioning their apparent narrative role as the one true evil. because i doubt the series is gearing up towards a spectacle-esque battle wherein our heroes get to practice righteous, easy violence on a monolithic army of monsters. that feels like it would undo a lot of asoiaf's preoccupation with investigating violence against socially acceptable targets, even if said target is ice sidhe. and this binary between a one true good and a one true evil, i.e. melisandre's philosophy ("if half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. a man is good or he is evil.") is not something the story takes as given.

instead there's this exchange between bran, jojen, and meera in asos: "but you just said you hated them." / "why can't it be both?" / because they're different. like night and day, or ice and fire." / "if ice can burn. then love and hate can mate."—and i think it's talking about reconciling two conflicting ideas. because the dream of an eternal summer is just as unsustainable as the threat of eternal winter. i think the battle for dawn is more about questions of seasonal harmony. the first line from agot's summary says, "long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance", so it's not totally out of question for the series to end with that seasonal balance restored once more. and that question of balance and how it can be achieved then works as a metaphor for a bunch of other things. because asoiaf at its core is very interested in exploring big contradictions, like love and duty? how do you keep all your oaths without betraying someone you love? how can one hope for a just, rightful ruler in a world where the systems in place can never allow such a thing? how do dragons plant trees?

you cannot frame dany's arc as a binary choice between planting trees or embracing (dragon)fire. because the fire is hers, it is a part of her, that's who she is. and her character has always existed outside of rigid dichotomies. at the end of agot she had two options, resign herself to a life of seclusion as a widow or die with the last of her family in that pyre, instead she performed a miracle. presently, i think grrm means to explore necessary, revolutionary violence with her arc because you cannot deal with institutional slavery by simply negotiating with slavers like she does in adwd. and the consequences thereof because she's also been set up to be more reckless with dragonfire in the future. but i think there will be an eventual reconciliation there, between her dreams "to plant trees and watch them grow." and her role as the mother of dragons, as a revolutionary figure. because if ice can burn, then maybe dragons can plant trees. they'll learn how to.

[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

[ilynpilled]

I think most people started liking jb as a couple after the bear pit scene, but when I read the books back in freshman year I think it was the sword fight. Maybe it is the fucked up dynamics enjoyer in me, even though jb ends up being relatively wholesome (at least for this series’s standards lmao). The chemistry in that thing was tangible. It is so funny too bc I always viewed it as proof of Jaime’s attraction/admiration/complex feelings for Brienne already being a serious problem in his subconscious from very early on. Ofc once he actually clashes swords with her, his respect grows noticeably because he also realizes her skill and strength, and Jaime is dudebro powerscaler coded like that. Nonetheless, Jaime at that point being a character that just wants to “cut through” his problems puts that entire scene into a very interesting perspective. Brienne is literally a problem that he wants to cut through. “His brother never untied a knot when he could slash it in two with his sword.” He is in such a dark place as a character that his instinct is to kill his problems, even if said problem is a living person.

“Jaime had told him of it often enough. How time seemed to blur and slow and even stop, how the past and the future vanished until there was nothing but the instant, how fear fled, and thought fled, and even your body. "You don't feel your wounds then, or the ache in your back from the weight of the armor, or the sweat running down into your eyes. You stop feeling, you stop thinking, you stop being you, there is only the fight, the foe, this man and then the next and the next and the next, and you know they are afraid and tired but you're not, you're alive, and death is all around you but their swords move so slowly, you can dance through them laughing." 

He uses violence as a means of depersonalization, as by killing he transforms into some beast who operates on impulse. If he is so powerful physically then he is untouchable and does not have to face complex paradoxes that he cannot seem to overcome inside of his mind and heart. This is also why when this ability is robbed of him he is forced to confront himself.

This parallels Brienne pretty nicely bc she too views fighting as an effective coping mechanism, though it is considerably less dark for her. It is less about enacting violence upon your problems and destroying them and more about protecting yourself from them.

"Fighting is better than this waiting," Brienne said. "You don't feel so helpless when you fight. You have a sword and a horse, sometimes an axe. When you're armored it's hard for anyone to hurt you."

This is also present in the fight itself: “yet somehow he could not reach her. It was as if she had an iron cage around her that stopped every blow.”

Fighting is like a different language these two share. It means more to them than it does to most people. It is a means of survival, not just physically but mentally. No wonder their dreams are often them fighting a manifestation of their trauma with swords. Already there will be a level of intimacy at play during their clash. It is also interesting that this established dynamic of Jaime on the offense, and Brienne on the defense, changes as the fight goes on.

Back to Jaime and how he views her though: She is his captor, sure, but she is also someone that is challenging his entire world view that he constructed for himself to enable his behavior and not get crushed by the weight of his self-concept. She is someone whose judgement of him is so thoroughly founded in genuine care about his victims. She faces him with it head on, not behind his back. The way she dehumanizes him bothers him so much, because she already proves herself to be someone whose opinion of him has weight. She stops to bury innocents that fell victim to her supposed “allies”. He stops to imagine her in Cersei’s gowns, and looks at her muscular calves and arms as she rows, even though the only woman he ever wanted was Cersei. She is his other half, after all. She is a woman that is very competent in a role that was not meant for her by the rules of the realm. So much of his animosity towards her is rooted in all of this, especially considering that she judges him so harshly, with her absolutist morality and naivety pissing off Jaime even more. There is a big part of him that desperately seeks her approval.

THEN THE WAY IT IS WRITTEN. I know George gets shit for his sex scenes but this shit is so good idc. That old man went off here.

“Give me the sword, Kingslayer.” “Oh, I will.” He sprang to his feet and drove at her, the longsword alive in his hands.

The swords kissed and sprang apart and kissed again. Jaime’s blood was singing.

“swinging so hard that sparks flew when the swords came together, upswing, sideslash, overhand, always attacking, moving into her, step and slide, strike and step, step and strike, hacking, slashing, faster, faster, faster… …until, breathless, he stepped back and let the point of the sword fall to the ground, giving her a moment of respite.”

The dance went on. He pinned her against an oak, cursed as she slipped away, followed her through a shallow brook half-choked with fallen leaves. Steel rang, steel sang, steel screamed and sparked and scraped, and the woman started grunting like a sow at every crash”

“Come on, come on, my sweetling, the music’s still playing. Might I have this dance, my lady?”

She is stronger than I am. The realization chilled him.

“His point scraped past her parry and bit into her upper thigh. A red flower blossomed, and Jaime had an instant to savor the sight of her blood before his knee slammed into a rock. The pain was blinding. Brienne splashed into him and kicked away his sword. “YIELD!”

Jaime drove his shoulder into her legs, bringing her down on top of him. They rolled, kicking and punching until finally she was sitting astride him. He managed to jerk her dagger from its sheath, but before he could plunge it into her belly she caught his wrist and slammed his hands back on a rock so hard he thought she’d wrenched an arm from its socket. Her other hand spread across his face. “Yield!” She shoved his head down, held it under, pulled it up.

Brienne lurched to her feet. She was all mud and blood below the waist, her clothing askew, her face red. She looks as if they caught us fucking instead of fighting…Small wonder, we were making enough noise to wake a dragon.”

“Well met, friends,” he called to them amiably. “My pardons if I disturbed you. You caught me chastising my wife.” “Seemed to me she was doing the chastising.”

Swords being used as phallic symbolism is nothing new in literature. Also so funny to me that people think jb being “sexual” would ruin the “purity” and “depth” of the relationship. lmao we are way past the point of it being the “the platonic comrades with mutual respect” thing some of you see it as. I am hesitant to believe that was ever really the case with this relationship.

[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!!

[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

[greenbloods]

asoiaf thesis statements

The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends. 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.

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.

The land is one.

"What is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?" "Everything."

Men's lives have meaning, not their deaths.

We were king’s men, knights, and heroes...but some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes monsters of us all.

When I'm king in my own right, I'm going to outlaw beets.

[branwinged]

one thing about asoiaf is that it frequently invites you to have sympathy for characters who've carried out varying degrees of morally repulsive acts (most apparent with pov characters such as theon, cersei, tyrion, and jaime but also sandor, joffrey, and even viserys). and most of these characters have received some equivalent of, what may look like 'narrative comeuppance' : theon flayed by ramsay, cersei made to perform her walk of atonement, tyrion sold as a slave, jaime losing his hand, joffrey's painful, drawn out death etc. except the scenes really aren't framed like that since the series doesn't seem to buy into that idea. all these incidents are not just deserts but moments of horrible injustice against these characters. and that's a little series thesis statement in itself, no neat category of monsters whose misdeeds can be addressed by a single moment of karmic justice but people like you and me who hurt others and have been hurt and continue on living. it's saying, here's this person who is capable of great cruelty influenced and motivated by their experiences with the world, but will you also hold understanding and sympathy in your heart for when the world is cruel to them in return? given what most fandom discourse looks like... the answer to that question is unfortunately a resounding no for a lot of readers.

[visenyaism]

asoiaf thesis statement

[ilynpilled]

insane scene for insane people (me)

[weirdwoodeyes]

jaime roy lannister for the character ask game 😈

he’s so shiv i mean roman i mean kendall i mean connor….

sexuality: hall of fame bisexual

otp: brienne and i’ve written 100k words on this

brotp: loras!! obsessed with jaime being like there are no men like me and then proceeding to find numerous people who are just like him

notp: like cersei obv but they’re so interesting and gross i don’t oppose watching them interact

first headcanon that pops into my head: i’m kind of taken with him shaving his head bald again when he goes to winterfell

favorite line: impossible choice i genuinely believe jaime has some of the most Thesis Statement lines of any character in asoiaf. but truly like truly “the things i do for love”

one way in which i relate: he is always watching himself

thing that gives me secondhand embarrassment: how hard he tries to makes people hate him

problematic fave ofc. and i think jaime stans are some of the biggest culprits of trying to downplay the problematic part of problematic fave

[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.