#baelish stealing power in the north

[cchellacat]

Yes, this sounds batshit crazy but hear me out.

Larys Strong’s motivations during the Dance of the Dragons could never truly be explained according to book lore. However it does seem clear that he sought power for himself and had some sort of drive to see to the Targaryens and the Dragons downfall. Is he working for The Children of the Forest? The Great Other? The Night King? Or is he like Petr Baelish, an opportunist and an adherent to the Chaos is a Ladder school of Villainy? Who knows? Any? All? What’s important is that his ambiguity and ambition paints him with enough mystery to allow for rampant speculation.

First he sided with the Greens, helping to wipe out Rhaenyra and her line. Then he turned on Aegon the second, poisoning him and ending both his reign and his life. This left Only two small children Aegon III (son of Rhaenyra) and Princess Jaehaera (daughter of Aegon II) ( I believe he was unaware of the survival of Aegon III younger brother, Prince Viserys)

It’s unclear what his plans would have been for Aegon III as Cregan Starks arrival soon put paid to his plots and his life.

Now is where my crazy speculation begins.

Larys is beheaded with Ice by Cregan Stark. Why is this significant? It ties back or perhaps I should say forward to the death of Ned Stark, also by Ice. It has been long speculated that Ned could have wargged into a bird at the moment of his death. Irrespective of the veracity of this claim, it does open a second parallel between their deaths as it has been strongly hinted by the tv show that Larys Strong was a warg that used rats and small animals to spy on people.

Now Larys has another enemy. The Starks. He knows there is no escape but Larys has another secret, he isn’t just a warg. He’s a Greenseer. And he has a plan.

Larys asks Cregan to take his clubfoot off after he is beheaded so it can’t follow him in death. After the execution Cregan does as requested. When it comes time to return Larys Strong’s body to Harrenhall for burial he orders the clubfoot to be buried in a random field, however the foot has gone missing. This is all part of the plan.

Larys dies, wargs an animal and steals the club foot he had Cregan chop off. He knows his time is limited before the instincts of the animal over ride his conscious. The animal takes the clubfoot to a Weirwood and buries it in the roots of the tree allowing Larys a blood and flesh anchor to the Weirwood network and time to plan his next move. He has no scruples , no strong moral code, this man is a complete sociopath. He killed his father and brother after all and helped to support a war that killed his bastard nephews Princes Jacerys, Lucerys and Joffrey. He searches and lures greensseers and wargs to him, eventually convincing them to join with the weirwood tree and taking over their bodies. Larys Strong becomes the The Eyed Raven, he repeats this body snatching through the centuries all the while manipulating the people of Westeros , with one goal, to end the Dragons forever and destroy houses Targaryen and Stark.

The Three Eyed Raven engineers Bran Starks accident, it’s no coincidence that Bran, like Larys is a cripple. This is intentional and another parallel showing how personal pain and trauma helps those driven enough to “fly” or as I speculate to wake their power.

At the End of Game of Thrones The last Targaryen has been exiled to the wall, the Starks are broken and heading for an unpleasant ending. Arya to disappear at sea and Sansa to rule the North and probably never have children or die when the Northeners get fed up with her. Only Bran remains in an unexpected and baffling position, as King, but it’s not Bran the Broken as King of Westeros it’s Larys Strong , The Clubfoot, The Three Eyed Raven.

[sailorshadzter]

all's well that ends well to end up with you

@jonsa-week

day 7: bastards, royalty, free choice. 

a canon divergent au where jon is the known bastard of rhaegar targaryen, raised in winterfell by ned stark after convincing robert baratheon to spare his life as an infant. 

a king beyond the wall x sansa / alayne fic. 

"There he is my sweet..."

Lord Baelish's breath is warm against her skin, his mouth incredibly close to her ear; she can feel his body pressed against her back, far too close for comfort, but she cannot speak as she stands frozen on the spot. He's right, just ahead, the sullen Jon Snow stands. King Beyond the Wall, that's what he's called now, though once he had been her father's ward, once he had just been Jon. Sansa remembers, but she is not Sansa, not anymore. "You must make him fall in love with you... It should be easy enough to do." Baelish goes on, side stepping around her, his cloak rippling with his movements. "Even a man like Jon Snow will have a weakness for a pretty woman, all men do." The look he gives her sickens her and she turns away, instead again focusing her gaze upon the man that stands just across the room.

He's deep in conversation with Lord Royce and a man she doesn't recognize, his dark curls pulled back into a tight bun at the base of his neck. Jon Snow is a handsome man, she must admit, his battle scar giving him a different sort of attractiveness, rather than taking away from it. She's reminded of her first husband, the Lannister imp, who's already ugly face had been marred with a scar just before their union. They've not seen one another in years, she wonders if he'll even know her, though without her trademark red hair, she seems to blend in well among the rest of the world. I am not Sansa, he does not know me, she reminds herself yet again, I am Alayne now.

"Your grace," Lord Baelish greets as they approach the trio of men, all whom turn to look upon them. Lord Royce offers her a smile and the knot in her stomach lessens; he's the only one who's been truly kind to her here. He and the other man step away, leaving Baelish and her alone with the young king. "Might I introduce to you my daughter, Alayne." He extends out his arm, beckoning her forward, and somehow, she manages to propel herself the final few steps forward.

As she sinks into the appropriate curtsy, she offers him a demure sort of smile, looking up at him from beneath her lashes as Baelish has instructed her so often to do. "Your grace," she breathes as she returns to her full height and she wonders if he can hear her heart as it beats so wildly within her chest. "It is an honor to meet you."

Jon can't speak, why he can't even breathe.

He's captivated by this young woman that's so suddenly approached him on the arm of the weasel Petry Baelish. She's beautiful, with eyes so blue he could swear that he's looking into the summer sky. Her hair is long and dark, strangely unfitting for her, but he finds he longs to reach out to run his fingers through the length of it. And even stranger, he feels as if he knows her. He feels as if he's met her before. I must be imagining it, he thinks as he finally comes back to the moment, realizing he's been silent for far too long. Lingering just off to the side, Lord Baelish can't help but to smile to himself. "The honor is mine," Jon finally responds, reaching out to take her hand, a spark of energy flowing through him the moment his skin makes contact with hers. He draws her hand to his lips and he presses a soft, warm kiss against her knuckles, like a courtier to a queen, and he's hyper aware of how she holds her breath until his lips leave her skin.

Suddenly, he wants to speak with her without the eyes upon them, without the ears listening. "Walk with me, won't you?" He asks, surprising her, but she shoots Baelish a glance who of course gives a discrete nod and so she smiles and loops her arm through his when he offers it to her. Heads turn as they make their way across the room and out the door into the mid morning sunshine, to walk the gardens of the Vale.

It's growing colder and she knows winter is coming, her family's words ever present in the back of her mind. "I did not know Lord Baelish had a daughter," Jon begins as they take to the first pathway, the once lush gardens are now brown and dying, the most delicate of leaves heavy with the first frost.

"I am a bastard," she answers quickly, side glancing him, realizing in that moment that he does not know her. He would not know Alayne. "Though I am to be legitimatized," she goes on as he steers her towards the center of the gardens, where a great fountain once was the center piece of the place. Now it is but a stone pool among the frozen garden. They come to the nearest bench and when she's settled upon it, Jon sits down beside her, a comfortable distance between them.

"I too am a bastard, you know," he points out and she shakes her head.

"But a King's bastard," she replies. "And a man. It is different for you." She is the true born heir to the North, she is a princess of Winterfell, and yet she still holds no power for herself. Her family is gone, dead to her all these years now, and she's got no options but to trust that Lord Baelish will help her along. She has endured worse than him, that is certain. Her time in King's Landing had toughened her, had changed her. "I have no say in my life."

Jon can understand that. King's bastard or not, he too had little choice in his life. He recalls when the Starks had left Winterfell all those years ago and he, being the Targaryen bastard that he was, certainly could not go. He went to the wall, to Castle Black, and they went South to King's Landing. He can still remember the glimmer of the sun in Sansa's auburn hair as she rode away. "What would you do... If you had a say?" Jon asks and she turns towards him, surprise widening her sapphire eyed gaze. But then she's smiling, cheeks blooming with color as she glances towards her hands where they twist in her lap.

"I would fall in love," she whispers, thinking of what that would mean for her. A man to love her, not her name, not her title. A man who loved her for who she was. A man who would love her as a bastard born girl or as the North's lost princess. "I have been betrothed to kings and married to an imp... I should like to marry a man who loves me." She knows she's said too much now and she turns away, tucking a stray strand of hair behind an ear. "It is a silly dream," she goes on, almost more to herself than to him, as if she is trying to convince herself to believe what she's saying. "I will do as my father commands." She hates referring to Baelish as her father- Ned Stark was my father, she wants to shout, Catelyn Stark was my mother! The lords that snubbed their noses at her bastard status would fall to their knees in remorse if they knew the truth of who she was.

He knows that story.

It was the same story he heard all those weeks leading up to the trip to King's Landing. Sansa was going to King's Landing to marry the future king, Joffrey, a thing she had always seemed most excited about, even if Jon had thought him to be insufferable. Jon blinks as he stares at her, knowing there was no way that this was Sansa, that this was the girl he had been raised beside like a brother. It can't be her, he tells himself with a small shake of his head. "And what is is that your father has commanded of you?" He asks instead, peering at her with those somber gray eyes, his hand itching to reach out and touch hers where it lays in her lap.

"To marry as will benefit my family, as is every father's wish," she replies with a quick shrug.

"And do you have many suitors, Lady Alayne?" He watches as she licks her lower lip, a seductive gesture that spreads warmth from his belly down. "What men does your father parade before you?" He's closer now and she's staring at him with those wide, blue eyes, her rosy lips drawing him in.

"I am a bastard," she reminds him softly, "until I am legitimized, I fear I have no prospects." Her heart is beating wildly within her chest and it's only then that she feels Jon slip his hand over hers. The touch of his hand sends a shock wave through her entire being, a feeling that she wants to experience again and again. He's so very close to her now that she can feel the warmth of his breath with every exhale- but unlike when Baelish gets so close, she's giddy with nerves, rather than sick with disgust.

It's then that he kisses her, a long, slow kiss that when it ends, they're both breathless.

She pulls back, lips tingling, her hand still clasped in his. "I'm sory," he says at once, realizing he's kissed her without asking, without knowing her beyond this single conversation. Though, somehow it feels as if he's known her all his life. Kissing her had only felt natural, as if he had been waiting to do it all this time.

"Don't be," she says with a hint of a smile before it's her that leans in, capturing his mouth with a kiss that is deeper than the one before. His tongue meets with hers as the hand that once held onto hers slides into place against her cheek, the other one sliding up to tangle into her dark locks. They are as soft as he thought they would be. This time when they break apart, they're both grinning, hearts beating in unison within their chests. Something about kissing Jon felt right- as if she was always meant to do it.

She wonders if she should tell him the truth, it's there on the tip of her tongue, but it's Lord Baelish calling out to them then, catching their attention from across the gardens. Jon jumps to his feet then, despite being a king who rises for no man, springing away from her as if she's caught fire. "I've brought you your cloak, my sweet," Baelish says as he approaches, his smile that of a doting father, but Sansa can see the pleased look in his dark green eyes. The look of a man, not a father. He stoops so he can wrap the cloak around her shoulders himself, righting himself to turn to Jon instead. "At your pleasure, your grace, perhaps you might dine with us this evening."

Jon does not hesitate in his nod and when he's promised to see the pair lately, Jon excuses himself from their company to return to his chambers, where Davos already waits for him.

In the gardens, Baelish can only smile as he slips an arm around her slim shoulders, drawing her in as they make their way across the gardens together. "One hour with him and already he is yours," he says with a chuckle, wondering what his pretty bastard had done to ensnare the King Beyond the Wall so easily. No matter, so long as he was hers, Baelish could care less how she does it. "When he knows your true name, sweet girl, he will go to war and win back the North for you." That is the plan, after all. Jon Snow and his Wildling army would take back Winterfell from the Bolton's in the name of House Stark, in the name of the woman he called his queen. If things went as well as he hoped, when this was all over, it would be him that they called King and she woudl be his queen instead.

She can't help but to smile, her lips still tingling with Jon's kiss.

[myimaginationplain]

I wanna talk about the "niece x evil or otherwise unsavory distant uncle" trope, because it's something I've noticed to be surprisingly common (or at least it feels common, because once I saw it I couldn't stop seeing it.) As far as I've seen, the trope usually comes as a result of the uncle attempting to marry his niece in order to gain access to whatever power or wealth she is the rightful heir to.

Content warning for discussion of fictional incest, forced marriage, and grooming below the cut.

I've recognized this trope in:

Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro ( Count Cagliostro attempts to marry his niece, Princess Clarrise, in order to reunify their sides of the family and steal "Cagliostro's lost treasure.")

Laputa: Castle In The Sky ( At some point I remember Colonel Muska implying that he would marry Sheeta, his distant relative and heir to Laputa and it's magic, if he had to. Although admittedly I don't remember the exact line, and it wasn't half as big a plot point as him capturing and eventually trying to kill her was. I'll have to revisit it. He definitely does make an unwarranted remark about her being pretty, though.)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (Count Olaf tries to marry Violet for the kids' inheritance. Thinking back this was probably the first time I was even consciously exposed to the trope.)

And a complicated, slightly off-kilter version of the trope can be found in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones with Sansa Stark and Petyr Baelish. Now, although these two aren't blood related, he was a childhood friend of Sansa's mother Catelyn, who often described him as "like a brother" to her. And Petyr does legally become Sansa's uncle through his marriage to her aunt, Lysa. Like the previous three examples, Petyr is also aiming for access to some material gain (Sansa's claim to the North, a potential future claim the Vale, and most likely an eventual stake for the Iron Throne.) However, there's also an added sexual/romantic element, as Petyr projects his childhood infatuation with Catelyn onto Sansa, and is actively grooming her.

And now on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, I want to make an honorable mention of Mirabel and Bruno in Encanto. Now before anyone gets mad at me, I know; Bruno wasn't actually evil, he didn't want anything of Mirabel (least of all anything material,) and most importantly—they're not romantic in canon. They're perfectly platonic and familial within the film itself. But the reason I bring it up is because I wonder if part of the reason some read romance in their interactions is because of the shades of the trope these two have. The pieces are superficially there: an uncle who Mirabel is initially led to believe is wicked, a niece who has access to whatever it is said uncle wants (in Bruno's case, rather than anything material, what he really wants is to be welcomed back into the family.) Maybe, subconsciously, you could recognize the pattern and put said pieces together, even if they weren't meant to be. It's like an opposite side of the coin version of this trope.

Anyways, there are probably several other examples of this trope that I've either never seen, or simply can't remember. I'd like to know if this trope has a name, or if anyone can think of more examples.

[j-morgan-fly]

The Mockingbird has his way

So, this is a little something I have been working on. It's not full blown nor do I feel it ready to post on AO3, but I wanted to get it out there. I just wanted to write something where the Lords get called out, even if it's by manipulative Baelish, for abandoning and overlooking Sansa's claim and the role she played in ridding the North of the Bolton's.

___

“House Mormont remembers. The North remembers. We know no King, but the king in the North whose name is Stark,” the young Lady Mormont’s words held the power of her loyalty and conviction. She shamed the seasoned and weathered men, old and young, around her. A girl of eleven standing before them, speaking out for herself and her people with far more honor then any of them. It made Sansa smile for Lyanna Mormont reminded her terribly of Arya and she wished her sister were with them, prayed to the Old Gods she was alive somewhere out there and once news reached her about the Starks occupying Winterfell once more she might find her way safely home. She also smiled because she was happy for Jon.

She took his hand under the table, giving it a squeeze. He glanced at her, and her smile grew a little more. She was proud of him and she wanted him to know it. That he deserved these words of ankowledgment from their people. She was happy that despite his reservations in the beginning about taking back their home, he had fought with her, for their family and people and proved himself beyond a shadow of a doubt their fathers son. Bastard or no, Jon was a Stark to her, and now their lords were starting to see him the same way. As they should.

She could feel it in the air, soon, just in a moment they would rise and name him king. She had made sure of. When she realized Petyr’s plans, when he admitted his pretty dream to her under the Heart Tree, she knew what his scheme was and she had to put a stop to it.

She went to as many lords as she could before this great meeting, campaigning for Jon’s claim over her own. She was a woman after all, twice married to enemies of her family and she had seen already what they thought of her when she went to their keeps with Jon. It would not be a difficult thing for any of them to choose Jon over her when given the choice.

“Queen, you mean,” Sansa felt her throat get tight, her smile fell and she as well as the other lords turned to look at Little Finger. He stepped forward from where he stood in a shadow on the wall.

“The queen in the North whose name is Stark. Lady Sansa, who sits beside her bastard brother, is the rightful heir to the Northern Throne and Winterfell.”

The Knights of the Vale gave grunts of agreement and Lady Mormont's already naturally sour expression turned more so, her lips pressing into a thin line and her eyes narrowing on the Mockingbird as he spoke. “I and the Knights of the Vale rode North at the command of Lady Sansa’s cousin, Lord Robert Arryn, to fight and reclaim his cousin's childhood home and her birthright in her name. Not for Jon Snow.”

Sansa swallowed as Jon looked at her, questions in his eyes. She could see the accusation in his dark grey eyes. Was this her plan? Was this why she begged him to fight again? Why she kept him from going somewhere warm and peaceful? To help make her queen?

She shook her head. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t what she wanted at all. She had assumed Little Finger would act as a puppeteer, using bribed and convinced Northern Lords to speak up on her behalf, but ultimately they would be outnumbered by those who would see Jon as King. Little Finger was not a man to fight and argue his own battles, so he must feel truly desperate if he was speaking out for her.

“Unless, did King Robb change the laws of succession in the North before his tragic death?” he asked the lords in a whole. “Did King Robb send some document back North, signed by his hand, or is there a witness here to such a letter having ever been made by him before his death removing or displacing Lady Sansa from the succession of Winterfell and putting her claim below that of Jon Snow?”

They murmured to one another, discussing it briefly if any who had fought with her brother, who had managed to come home had seen or heard him plan such a thing in regards to succession should he fall. From there frowns it seemed the answer was no. All of Robb’s closest friends and advisors who might have been witness to such a document being made or at least planned, had died. Murdered with their King at the Twins.

“Not one of you can confirm from your time fighting with your king if he ever planned to disinherit or displace his sister, Lady Sansa, from the line of succession?” Little Finger asked, smirking. “Even after she was forced to marry the Imp?”

Sansa thought for a moment this was perfect, he made a mistake reminding them of her first marriage. It would put her loyalties into question, make the lords unsure of her just like how Lyanna Mormont questioned her when she came with Jon, asking for house Mormont to raise their banners and fight for the Starks once more. It had been humiliating and biting, she hated that her loyalty was in question, that she was seen as anything but the Stark that she was. But she didn’t want to be queen, she just wanted to go home, to free it from the monsters that lurked it’s halls and to feel safe again with her family.

In truth, she had not had detailed plan for the long run when she chose to continue pursuing Winterfell’s reclamation into Stark hands again. What she did know was that she would never bow to the Lannister's or anyone who wasn’t family again, but that did not mean she wished to be queen. She would have seen first what the lords desired and go from there. But she would not marry again. She knew at least Jon would support her in that.

If the Lords wanted freedom, then she would support them. She had lost too much family for their freedom, and she had bled as much as any man in battle since the start of the war. Since they took her fathers head and she would not let the pain and loss be for nothing. If they didn’t succeed in claiming Northern independence for themselves, then what was the point in any of it. Every loss would feel suddenly hollow, without meaning, pointless and she could not go on if that was the case. So she had to hold on to this, to the thing that so many had gave their lives fighting for, the reason she had beaten and sold. If she let go she would fall and never stop. So she would grip on tight, and she would keep fighting the battles to come the only way she knew how.

If the lords cried out for independence like she thought they might, then Jon could rule. He could marry despite the strange way the thought made her stomach clench, legitimize himself and produce heirs for house Stark and she would be a loyal sister, an advisor, helping him maneuver and defeat Cersei and someday Little Finger.

She would help rebuild Winterfell, manage it why he ruled, and one day, maybe she would heal enough to marry, to find a nice, simple man and settle down. Let herself have some peace and happiness. But first their was so much work to be done. And she could get more done as anything but a queen.

“As you say, my Lord, Lady Sansa was wed to the Imp. How can we trust that he did not corrupt her? And it is said she is the one who killed the bastard king at his own wedding.” the young Lord Cerwyn stood again to speak.

“And if she did, would you not commend her and say that she helped avenge her family, her brother and mother, the death of her beloved father, your Lord Eddard that Joffrey beheaded?” Little Finger asked.

“If you are questioning her loyalty to the Lannister’s then I think the example you have given is the answer. If she did murder Joffrey and then framed her Lannister husband than she most certainly is not loyal to them,”

“And what of Ramsay Bolton?” asked Lady Mormont, her scowl turning on Sansa.

She watched as Jon glared at Little Finger, having told him how she had come to be in the Bolton’s possession during her time as a refugee at the wall. The mockingbirds shoulders fell and he looked at Sansa with pained regret.

“That was my doing,” he admitted and the Lords in the room. “I was dear, childhood friend to Lady Sansa’s mother. I wanted to bring Cat’s daughter home. Support her claim as she would have if she had survived the Red Wedding.”

He shook his head and cast an accusing eye over the Northern Lords.

“I had hoped that I might help Sansa with a coup against the Bolton's. They thought I was an ally, but I was simply using them to help place Sansa back in her houses seat of power.” he begin to explain the plan, a plan Sansa had no knowledge of until now. “It was my belief that Northerners were more loyal then the rest of the men of Westeros and would come to Lady Sansa’s aide while I gathered allies in the Vale and Riverland's to take back and hold the North from the Bolton’s and Lannister's.”

He sighed then, the room falling silent, some with suspicion and others with guilt.

“Instead, our brave lady was let down by her own people and had to rescue herself with the help of a turn cloak. If only I had known the disrespectful disregard you would show the daughter of your liege lord I would never have brought Lady Sansa back North,”

No man or women in the room had a very good response, all mostly falling back on the excuse of how they believed Sansa’s loyalties to be with the Lannister’s, and that her marriage to one of their allies was her attempt to save her own neck after killing Joffrey in a jealous rage after being put aside for another woman. It hurt Sansa but she did not show it. She was steal cloaked in ice, her expression one of indifference rather than the pain she felt at her peoples words.

“I have heard enough!” Jon stood from his chair, the legs scraping the stone floor loudly. “How dare all of you question Sansa’s loyalty, while you sat in your castles with full knowledge of what Ramsay was capable of and what he had done to girls before her. Where was your loyalty to house Stark then?”

They grumbled but had no answer to give, heads bowed, some glaring, frustrated to be called out as they were, to be told they were disloyal and dishonorable.

Sansa felt her heart flutter in her chest, growing warm at his defense of her. “My sister was a hostage, a prisoner of the Lannister’s to be used against our brother and the North. I will not let you ignore her and brush her aside as I have seen you do up till now any longer.”

“As much as I am honored by what Lady Lyanna was suggesting, Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa. She is the one who wanted to fight for Winterfell when I wanted to runaway, go somewhere warm, far from winter and wars. She is a true Northerner and she is Robb’s heir, your queen in the North.”

Sansa wanted to scream. No. No, she didn’t want this.

She looked imploringly at Jon, but he took her expression for something else, smiling at her.

Stop, you fool, you have no idea what your doing. Your playing right into his hands. This is what he wants.

He took her hand and guided her to a stand beside him, his hand slipping to grasp her risk and holding her arm above her head.

“The Queen in the North!” he announced to the whole room and Sansa felt her heart stop when she met Little Fingers eye.

“The Queen in the North,” he repeated, lowering to one knee for her. The lords looked at one another before slowly men rose, unsheathing their swords and raising them in the air, repeating her new title until the whole room was chanting it.

Sansa closed her eyes and a tear slipped down her cheek.

[ode-to-an-inkwell]

Hey there! I’m a long term jonsa lover but just recently I’ve came to tumblr to get deep into it and I absolutely love your blog! I was wondering if you could tell me some of the theories fans have on how Jon and Sansa will reunite in the books, if you’d want to

Sending love from Brazil 💚💛

Hello, dear anon 💕

As far as theories go, many of us believe that Sansa will be the ‘girl in grey on a dying horse’ from Melisandre’s vision. The show sort of set this up, as she arrived at Castle Black in grey on a dying horse. There’s also a basis for this idea in the books, however.

Sansa’s currently in the Vale, and we’ve seen in preview chapters of Winds of Winter how she’s developing there. Her arc as Alayne, the bastard, has brought Jon to her thoughts more. Further, this is the furthest north she’s been since book one, and she can literally taste Winterfell in the snowfall.

We know that the Vale isn’t safe for Sansa. Firstly, there’s the betrothal to Harrold Hardyng. He’s depicted as vain and callous thus far, fathering at least two bastard children. This isn’t a good match for Sansa. Secondly (and more importantly) is Petyr Baelish. Like Bael the Bard, he wishes to steal the Northern Rose (Sansa). Unlike Bael, Littlefinger won’t be satisfied to give up anything he’s worked for—he’ll be holding onto Sansa and the power he’s accrued hard enough to strangle it.

(It’s also interesting that there are so many references to Bael the Bard in Jon’s chapters, but I digress)

It stands to reason that Sansa will come to a crossroads in WoW. With her identity falsified and a price on her head, things could get very dangerous for her without Littlefinger’s protection, and his “protection” is more akin to imprisonment. There’s some speculation that Sansa will soon kill LF—if he tries to force himself on her, she may very well have to.

Whether this comes to pass or not, Sansa will need to flee the Vale soon if she wishes to be safe, let alone happy. She can’t go south and into Cersei’s clutches, and she can’t go to Winterfell. Sansa will need the protection of someone she can trust. The only family she *thinks* is alive and *knows* how to find is...Jon. And it makes sense that these two wolves will want to form a pack.

After all, she’s a bastard too now, just like him.

Thank you for the ask! 🥰🌸

[asknightqueendany]

I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but when you mention Sansa sacrificed Rickon for her castle back, how does that work? I never really thought about it that way and I was wondering if you could go a bit into that and explain for dull in the head people like me

I don’t think you’re dull in the head anon and thank you for being polite.

So, Sansa told Jon that they would never be safe as long as Ramsay/House Bolton held Winterfell. However, that’s not really true.

Sansa and Jon could have fucked off to Essos and gone into hiding or started a new life there. Changed their names, Sansa could dye her hair again, Jon’s a fantastic swordsman, he could be someone’s body guard, Sansa could be a seamstress for the Essosi elite.

Seriously, this has Jonsa fanfic written all over it. Think of the potential here. Any Jonsas still lurking on my blog, feel free to steal.

Anyway, they didn’t have to stay in Westeros. Arya didn’t. They could have left. They chose to stay. Specifically, Sansa chose to stay, and in the North especially. Jon wanted to “go south and get warm.”

But Sansa wanted to stay. She wanted her home back. She wanted the North back. She wanted to be what Baelish had promised her the season before: Wardeness of the North.

And so, when she finally convinced Jon to fight for their home, she never divulged anything shout Ramsay that would hint to Jon that Ramsay might kill Rickon.

Granted, Jon should have expected this. But Jon also - as per the show - is someone honest to a fault and oftentimes doesn’t see the bad in people (no comments about Dany you fucks I will slap a bitch). So Jon was likely expecting Ramsay to fight fair. You know, not murder his little brother right in front of him.

But if Jon had known better what Ramsay was, if Sansa had told Jon sooner that “we’ll never get him back,” they could have come up with something, a plan to sneak into Winterfell and rescue Rickon.

SmallJon Umber even tells Ramsay that Jon knows Winterfell better than they ever will. They could have gotten into the castle somehow and stolen back Rickon. Rescued him.

But nope. Sansa didn’t suggest that. She didn’t tell Jon about the Knights of the Vale. She just left both Rickon and Jon to die on the battlefield.

Yes, me saying she sacrificed Rickon for a castle simplifies things perhaps a little too much. But really, not that much. Because again, she and Jon could have left Westeros and they would have been safe from Ramsay.

Sansa chose to let Rickon die for her revenge and her home and her power that she wanted - being Warden/Queen of the North.

People can say it’s all about “security” all they want. But that’s not entirely it when Sansa’s safety wasn’t really in question and she had many other options.

[jonsastan]

Jonsa: A Dream of Spring @jonsadreamofspring

Day 2  wolves / traitors / bastards

“My daughter, Alayne Stone.” Petyr Baelish’s voice exuded charm and submission. The Dragon Queen did not seem impressed. Alayne dipped into a low curtsy, focusing her eyes on the Queen’s small feet. Such mighty ambition walked through the world on such tiny feet.

“Your grace.” She murmured. The Queen looked at her for a long moment, longer than royalty looked at a bastard.

“You’re a pretty little bird.”

Still a bird. Alayne thought before scolding herself. Not before, only now. You were never a little bird in a gilded cage. You are bastard born and bastard brave.

“May I present my nephew, Jaehaerys Targaryen.” The Queen said gesturing to a figure entering the room. A familiar figure Alayne thought before quickly looking back at the Queen.

“He too was once a bastard.” The Queen told Alayne. “But I legitimised him, and named him my heir.” She looked quietly confident, as if by this act of legitimation she had the power of gods. Alayne lowered her eyes to the tiny feet of the Queen.

“Jon Snow, they used to call him.”

~~~~~~~~

Alayne pressed her forehead against the cool stone of the castle wall.

My siblings. She thought stroking the stones. Tears welled in her eyes at images of siblings which had once been hers. Siblings that were brave, and wild, and kind. Their names came unbidden to her. Robb, Arya, Bran, Rickon...Jon. But he wasn’t her brother, he was her cousin; and heir to the Iron Throne.

He’s not your cousin. She scolded herself, turning and pressing her back to the stone. You have no cousins. You are bastard born. She enjoyed the thump as she knocked her head against the wall.

“Are you well, my lady?” She straight and stifled a gasp at the sound of his voice. Deeper than she remembered but just as kind, it was the sweetest sound she had ever heard. She dropped into a curtsey.

“Yes, your grace. Thank you.” She remembered her courtesies, they were a Lady’s armour. What is a bastard’s armour? She wondered. She turned and made to leave, but he stopped her with one word.

“Sansa?”

Gods. It was a name she had been desperate to hear, to remember, to know. But it was not safe. It was a dangerous name.

“I’m sorry, your grace?” She asked, putting the same confused tone into her words that she had often heard in Jeyne’s voice.

No! Not Jeyne Poole. There was no Jeyne, there were no late nights talking of songs and knights and princes. But there was a prince. Here in front of her. His name is Jon Snow.

And hers Alayne Stone.

“Please look at me, my lady.” He moved closer to her, she could see his boots in the dust of snow. She could not meet his eyes.

She expected his next words to be a command, a demand, an order. That’s what men do. She thought. They scream and shout and take and break and destroy.

“Please?”

Her legs almost gave out beneath her. Why did he have to be kind and gentle and brave?

She looked at him.

“Sansa.” His voice was a smile. His arms wrapped around her and held her tight.

~~~~~~~~

“I will not steal her birthright!” Jon was shouting. She’d never heard him shout. “She is a Stark! A Wolf! The blood of the First Men runs through her veins!”

“As it does yours.” His aunt snapped. Her violet eyes had not left Sansa. The dye had been lifting from her hair, the red shining through making her look herself again.

“I am not a Stark. You made sure of that, Aunt.” Jon’s tone was almost reproachful. She remembered the young boy, so hopeful to make himself grand in the Night’s Watch, who would listen with rapt attention at tales of knights. Had he tried ambition, and command, and power, and found the taste bitter?

“You heard what Howland Reed said when he revealed the truth of your birth.” Daenerys snapped, finally removing her eyes from Sansa. “They know now King but the King in the North whose name is Stark. I do not think they will hesitate to replace King with Queen.” She stood and walked toward her nephew. “I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms, and I shall rule all seven.”

“Perhaps,” Petyr Baelish spoke softly, the voice he used when he wished his ideas to be taken as someone else’s notion. “A marriage may alleviate some tension. Robin is the Stark’s cousin, he could dilute the Stark name, but still hold the North.”

Sansa shivered. First they cloak me in the gold of lions and the blood of my family, now they wish to turn me into a bird for all my life.

“No.” It was Jon who spoke. “Sansa should not be bought and sold like-like a goat!”

“She is a lady, and all ladies marry at the will of others.” Daenerys replied coolly. “We all do.”

“If I may suggest?” Sansa ventured. She had learnt from the best, learnt the right words, the right tone, the posture to play the game. Now she must play to win. “A marriage alliance between House Stark and Targaryen would be a desirable means of bringing the North into the fold of the South and securing the Kingdoms, your grace. But perhaps, whilst you a rallying your forces in the South, your nephew could build forces in the North.”

“You expect the North to rally to a Targaryen, but would not have that Targaryen be your queen?” Daenerys’ voice was low, but powerful.

“I suggest the North will rally to the son of Eddard Stark, even the bastard son. I suggest, that Jon Snow returns to the North with an alliance with Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen and a bride from the Vale, two alliances to build strength in the North.”

“A bride from the Vale?” And for the first time Sansa thought she heard genuine surprise in Petyr’s voice.

“Alayne Stone, wife to Jon Snow, Warden of the North.” She looked to Jon. He nodded to her. The room was silent. Sansa held her breath. It was her only hand to play.

“And after I have taken what is mine?” Daenerys asked.

“Jon’s parentage shall be revealed and I shall resume my identity as Sansa Stark. The North will lose no wolves, but gain a dragon. You shall lose not kingdom, but gain fealty, loyalty-” She was going to stop there but saw something in the Dragon Queen’s eyes, some kind of longing, a burning desire that was not filled. “Love.”

Jon’s eyes met Sansa and he offered her a small smile. It had hope in it.  

“The North shall be rebuilt with Snow and Stone.” Daenerys commanded.

[nightqueendany]

The Original Final Season 7 - Episode 1: Family, Duty, Honor

This is a combination of events from “show canon” and what I believe would have happened in the “Original Final Season 7.”

Should be noted that King’s Landing is gray and not sunny and the weather gets worse as the season progresses. It does not stay sunny at all...because that’s just fucking stupid.

IN THE RIVERLANDS

The episode opens in the same fashion as the show canon 7x01, Arya Stark as Walder Frey, taking out the rest of the Frey men

After walking out of the hall, Arya heads to the dungeons and frees Edmure Tully. Arya tells him what she’s done, the Riverlands belong to House Tully again. Edmure asks what Arya will do now and she says she’s heading back home, her brother Jon is now KITN. 

Edmure, honoring the previous pledge he made to House Stark, asks Arya to send his pledge to Jon; the Riverlands will remain under Stark rule, under the King in the North

On her journey North, Arya runs into the Brotherhood Without Banners and the Hound. She’s still pissed at them for what they did to Gendry. As reparation, the Brotherhood decide to accompany Arya to Winterfell to see her safely home

IN THE FAR NORTH

The Winter Winds are rising, the Night King and his massive army of the undead march south...

AT THE WALL

Bran Stark makes it safely south of the Wall with the help of Meera and the Black Brothers. 

As Bran’s there, preparing to leave for Winterfell, we notice several of the Black Brothers are in incredibly bad health - either due to illness, lack of supplies, the cold, or some combination.

In looking for medicine/supplies, Lord Commander Edd Tollett comes across some of Sam’s old things, a cloak with a few remaining shards of dragonglass in it AND The Horn of Winter (though Edd doesn’t know what it is)

IN KING’S LANDING

Cersei Lannister - in losing all her allies and discovering news of the Frey massacre, Jon/Sansa ruling the North, and Dany/Tyrion coming to Westeros - becomes more obsessed with the Younger More Beautiful Queen prophecy. 

Because Sansa would be Jon’s heir if he dies and therefore QITN, Cersei isn’t certain if the YMBQ is Sansa or Dany, yet is convinced it’s one of them. This is when Cersei tells Qyburn to send word to Jon to come south to bend the knee to her

Cersei tells Jaime of the YMBQ prophecy and he worries for her mental state - having just lost Tommen, their last child...

...Until Qyburn reveals Cersei is pregnant. Cersei is then convinced this means the prophecy was indeed wrong, as she will now have more children than the prophecy foretold of

But, Jaime still worries about her as her actions and emotions are all over the place

IN OLDTOWN

Samwell Tarly finds out about the dragonglass on Dragonstone and writes to Jon

Sam also has his argument with Archmaester Ebros about the Army of the Dead, after which he steals the books from the Restricted Section of the library

IN WINTERFELL

Jon Snow receives Cersei’s raven scroll about “suffering the fate of all traitors”

Jon also receives word from Sam about the dragonglass on Dragonstone. 

Petry Baelish informs Jon and Sansa that he’s heard rumor Daenerys Targaryen is on her way to Westeros with Tyrion Lannister and Lord Varys at her side, along with the allegiance of several key regions of Westeros - Dorne, The Reach, The Iron Islands - he says she will likely land on Dragonstone

Before Jon and Sansa can process this information or weigh its pros and cons, they’re informed of someone at the gate:

Bran has arrived. Jon and Sansa are beside themselves with joy, (Bran is not robo Bran, he’s normal Bran), Jon tells Bran “You’ve finally made it back home…” CUT TO:

ON DRAGONSTONE 

Daenerys Targaryen arrives in Westeros, she’s finally made it back home as well

The title of the episode comes from Arya’s rescuing Edmure and getting revenge for her mother’s death by killing all the Freys. We’ve had many episodes named after house words, but never House Tully so this finally honors them. It’s also the theme of the episode. 

Episode 1 Inside the Episode: Family, Duty, Honor

1a) The Cold Open - Arya kills all the Freys:

Yes, I know the original Cold Open of 7x01 show canon was the White Walkers, but I’m assuming D&D would have made the same executive decision in post to swap that scene with this one because it’s so badass. So there you go.

1b) Arya heading home immediately:

Back in 6x10 Arya tells Jaqen that she’s Arya Stark of Winterfell and she’s going home. So why did she head to the Riverlands first to kill the Freys, just to want to go back south to kill Cersei? 

Such bullshit. Arya wanted to go home. And if she thought the Boltons still had Winterfell, she’d want to kill them too. She’s a faceless assassin. They killed her mother and brother. She’d want them dead as much as Walder Frey. She snuck into the Twins, a place she’s never been, to kill them all. Winterfell, her home, would be a piece of cake to take from the Boltons. And geographically, it makes sense for her to continue heading North after the Twins anyway. Otherwise why not kill Cersei in King’s Landing first, then head North to the Riverlands, then finally home to Winterfell, where she told Jaqen she was going? Cersei might have always been on Arya’s list, but in 6x10, Arya wanted to go back to Winterfell. That should have remained her plan. D&D retconned this to delay Arya’s return to Winterfell in S7 for their idiotic Starkbowl plot. Which we all know was pointless filler because they had split the seasons and added three extra episodes.

And side note: Of course Arya would meet up with the Brotherhood. We know they’re in the Riverlands (based on them staying at that house with the father and daughter Sandor had previously screwed over). They had to meet up. It’s stupid that they didn’t in canon.

1c) Edmure pledging to Jon:

This one is a no-brainer. Of course the Riverlands would side with the North in the war against Cersei (which hasn’t happened yet, but with Jon being declared KITN, it’s only a matter of time). This move makes Jon the King of ALL the Northernmost Kingdoms and puts him in a really really powerful position - and an appealing position for any single ladies out there looking to secure an alliance *cough*Dany*cough*.

2) Sam’s raven:

Jon should have gotten word from Sam about the dragonglass in 7x01. Anyone who regularly reads my metas should remember, I have mentioned several times that the timing of Jon’s receipt of Sam’s raven is off. Sam sends Jon the raven in 7x01. Tyrion sends Jon a raven in 7x02. But Jon receives Tyrion’s raven first so, nope. Huge tip-off of a retcon. Jon should have gotten Sam’s raven first.

3) Baelish being the one to tell the Starks about Daenerys going to Dragonstone:

This another no-brainer and we already had hints of this in 7x07 show canon. Baelish has been keeping tabs on Dany, he just doesn’t ever get to really show this. “I’ve heard the dragon queen is quite beautiful.” Just as Qyburn had info on Drogon being injured in the fighting pits of Meereen, Baelish should have information on Daenerys, her advisors, and her movements. Why would he know she’s beautiful, but not know anything else about her when this is his primary function in the series?

Baelish, like Sam, Varys, and Bran, is an “information guy”. His job is to know things and inform the other characters, mostly to his own benefit. So Baelish having knowledge of Dany heading for Dragonstone, as Cersei had this knowledge in 7x01, just makes sense. And this way, when Tyrion sends the raven to Dragonstone next episode, it will be something Jon has been anticipating, because of course the first thing Dany will want to do when reaching Westeros, is gain more allies and allying with the North makes the most sense. 

4) Cersei’s onset of madness:

We know this was where the plot was supposed to go, what with the miscarriage from 7x07 and everything. Cersei has already mentioned the YMBQ prophecy to Jaime before, telling him about how she knew their children would all die and that he couldn’t have stopped Myrcella’s death. 

With Tommen’s death still fresh in mind, it would make sense this prophecy would come up again. Season 7 Cersei really doesn’t need much of a push into madness and her obsessing over this prophecy, especially with Dany on her way to Westeros, is a natural progression for her character. At the end of S6, D&D promised us that a Cersei without her children would be “very dangerous” and it was never delivered to us. A prophecy-obsessed Cersei would definitely deliver. 

5) And finally, Castle Black:

We were so fucked out of seeing more of the Night’s Watch in the last two seasons in show canon. Edd finding the Horn of Winter in Sam’s old room will be incredibly important and be a final, long awaited pay-off for the scene from Season 2 in which Sam first discovered the dragonglass at the Fist of the First Men, when the horn was first shown to the audience. 

Aaaaaand that’s it for Episode 1! I know it’s short and for the most part looks very similar to show canon, so I will post Episode 2 as well today, though you guys will have to wait until next week for Episode 3.

Original Final Season 7: Preface Post

Season 7 Episode 1: Family, Duty, Honor (current episode)

Season 7 Episode 2: Greywater Watch

Season 7 Episode 3: The Last of the Dragons

Season 7 Episode 4: Dragonglass

Season 7 Episode 5: The Storm

Season 7 Episode 6: Summerhall 

Season 7 Episode 7: A City Fit For A King

Season 7 Episode 8: Protectors of the Realm

Season 7 Episode 9: The Battle For The Dawn

Season 7 Episode 10: ?

[oddcoupler222]

can you write the dissertation on sansa? i watch game of thrones and i used to find her annoying. she's stopped being so annoying to me but i don't see what you see in her but i'm interested in knowing why you love her so much

my time has come

Sansa starts out as a young, pampered 13 year old girl, who was born to a wealthy, powerful, respected family. She was raised to believe in very specific (feminine) parameters of who she should be, what she should want, and what she should do. And she was good (if not great) at everything she was taught to be and do.

So, like a high-class girl raised the way she was raised, she got the attention of a prince and wanted to be a princess; she was a romantic who believed in knights and songs and - of course, that’s what she wanted. And no, she didn’t think critically about political or social matters at that time - not because she couldn’t but because she was never taught that she should.

And yes, in season one when she was a child, she made mistakes because she was spoiled and could be bratty. And yes, her mistakes did contribute to some of the events that followed, like her father’s fate (but honestly, his death was essentially sealed no matter what because of what a psychopath Joffrey was). And my god, did she pay for it.

She was forced - literally held up - to watch her father get beheaded in front of her while she screams and cries and eventually passes out from the trauma of it.

Then she’s held hostage in King’s Landing, a place so very, very far from home, with the family who is literally killing her own. Physically abused by adult men, emotionally and mentally abused (including forced to look at her father and septa’s beheaded heads). Is forced to constantly put-down and renounce her family as traitors when all she wants is to see them again.

She finds out that her ancestral family home is taken from her family, that her little brothers are dead (yes we know they aren’t but she doesn’t). She’s forced to marry a man over twice her age. She hears about how her brother and mother - the last hope she had to come and rescue her - are brutally murdered.

And not only has to hear about it, but is literally forced to live with the people responsible for killing her entire family. The people who rub her face in the fact that not only is her family dead but that they killed them, who make her watch plays and sing songs glorifying the death of everyone she loved.

All of this while she is only a teenager.

You know what she does? She survives.

She wields her courtesy like armor; she holds her tongue when she wants to lash out and puts up a facade that she isn’t breaking inside.

She starts learning to use her words as her weapons. When Joffrey taunts her, she gives subtle reserved rejoinders that insult him just enough to toe the line (Joffrey: I’ll tell you what. I’m going to give you a present. After I raise my armies and kill your traitor brother, I’ll give you his head as well. Sansa: Or maybe he’ll give me yours.)

She adapts and evolves in a world where she feels incredibly alone. Not only alone but feels guilty and stupid.

Then she leaves King’s Landing - after being framed for murder - and is taken into the custody of a creepy man who was in love with her mother and is now in love with her (ugh) and yet, he is all she has at the time to rely on. And from there?

She learns even more; she starts to understand truly how to move the pieces of the game that she’s been thrown into.

But before she even has a say in her own life, she gets brought to Winterfell and is forced to be there with the family who betrayed hers and helped lead them to their deaths before stealing their home. She’s forced to marry the craziest, most monstrous character on the entire show (a man who rapes her, who locks her in a room, who plays mind games with her).

And, she never backs down from him – making comments to plant seeds of doubt about his status as a bastard, “I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell. This is my home. And you can’t frighten me.”

Still, she survives. She jumps off of a literal fucking castle to escape him, goes through feet of snow, through frozen waters and escapes him.

And when she’s finally reunited with her remaining family and Jon presents her with the opportunity to run away from this mess - because he is sick of fighting - it’s Sansa who now has grown this spine of steel. It’s Sansa who stands up for herself, to all of the men in the room who are older who are more familiar with wars and fighting, and asserts that she needs to take the Stark home back from the monster who lives there.

Who wins that war against Ramsay Bolton? Yes Jon - at Sansa’s insistence and while also not consulting her - fought in the war, but he would have been dead if Sansa hadn’t gotten the soldiers from the Vale to help them.

Let’s take the moment to reflect on that, too – Sansa wanted nothing more in the beginning of the show to leave the North. That the North was boring, wanted a new life, wanted to go south, and now? Now all she wants is her home. The home she left behind became all she longed for (it’s also why I’m so absolutely bullshit about Jon bending the knee and giving the North to Dany without even consulting Sansa).

In the end, it’s Sansa - the Northern girl who wanted nothing more than to leave the North when she was a child - who wins back the Stark home. It’s Sansa who underwent that development, that growth, to appreciate where she was from and the life she used to have.

And it’s also Sansa who has the knowledge and the understanding of politics, now, to actually rule the North when the Starks take back Winterfell, let’s be real. Sansa knows how to play the game, now. She knows how to manipulate and how to be diplomatic and how to reign in her emotions.

She plays Littlefinger - one of the smartest players in the game - like a fiddle, using the knowledge she took partly from him, while also cutting him off at the knees with the wit and cutting remarks that she’s learned over the years (“No need to seize the last word, Lord Baelish. I’ll assume it was something clever.”)

When he tries to manipulate her in the last season? She saw through it and orchestrated a plan to double-cross him. Her last words to him - “I’m a slow learner, it’s true. But I learn. Thank you for all your many lessons, Lord Baelish. I will never forget them.” before she gives the nod for Arya to fucking kill him in a court Sansa called?!

A Fucking Queen.

(though I will always contest that she is a slow learner; she was learning and surviving on the tips of her toes at every turn since the end of the first season)

Sansa went through hell and clawed her way back. She did start off as a spoiled child, and she more than paid any kind of “price.”

Sansa lost everything, was held captive, and survived by learning. Using her mind, her words, her politics. She isn’t like Arya and Jon and Bran who had the ability to physically leave the bad situation she was stuck in and find her own path. She isn’t like them in that she doesn’t have the ability to physically fight back.

She is flawed, she’s made mistakes, she’s human. But she has grown. She’s learned from her - and other people’s - mistakes, to become a smart, willful, strategic, diplomatic leader. She takes the best parts of her parents (their courage, their intelligence, their loyalty) and can look back and understand the mistakes they made to try to make sure she and her siblings don’t repeat them.

Sansa Stark is a beautiful, strong, well-developed character, and she deserves the world.

[trinuviel]

Why is it so significant the parallel between Queen Alysanne and Sansa?

The parallels between Queen Alysanne and Sansa Stark are significant because they may foreshadow Sansa eventually becoming Queen - and if that is so, it also hints what kind of Queen Sansa would be since Alysanne was called Good Queen Alysanne. The possibility of Sansa becoming a good queen is also highlighted in her narrative journey as she learns from her experiences at court.

Queen ship has been a continual theme in Sansa’s narrative arc, evolving in step with how her character develops - and this theme is there for a reason, especially AFTER her betrothal to Joffrey was broken.

In the first book, Sansa’s notion of queenship was a very naive one - the Disney princess dream, so to speak, of pretty dresses, having babies and living happily ever after in a world where everyone is courteous and nice.

That night Sansa dreamt of Joffrey on the throne, with herself seated beside him in a gown of woven gold. She had a crown on her head, and everyone she had ever known came before her, to bend the knee and say their courtesies. (AGoT, Sansa IV)

Later she sees it as a way to save those she loves and to protect herself:

Joffrey was the king now, she thought. Her gallant prince would never hurt her father, no matter what he might have done. If she went to him and pleaded for mercy, she was certain he’d listen. He had to listen, he loved her, even the queen said so. Joff would need to punish Father, the lords would expect it, but perhaps he could send him back to Winterfell, or exile him to one of the Free Cities across the narrow sea. It would only have to be for a few years. By then she and Joffrey would be married. Once she was queen, she could persuade Joff to bring Father back and grant him a pardon. (AGoT, Sansa IV)

He did not hate her, Sansa realized; neither did he love her. He felt nothing for her at all. She was only a … a thing to him. “No,” she said, rising. She wanted to rage, to hurt him as he’d hurt her, to warn him that when she was queen she would have him exiled if he ever dared strike her again …(AGoT, Sansa IV)

In the second book, she is subjected to Cersei’s toxic “wisdom” about how a Queen should act:

“The night’s first traitors,” the queen said, “but not the last, I fear. Have Ser Ilyn see to them, and put their heads on pikes outside the stables as a warning.” As they left, she turned to Sansa. “Another lesson you should learn, if you hope to sit beside my son. Be gentle on a night like this and you’ll have treasons popping up all about you like mushrooms after a hard rain. The only way to keep your people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy.”

“I will remember, Your Grace,” said Sansa, though she had always heard that love was a surer route to the people’s loyalty than fear. If I am ever a queen, I’ll make them love me. (ACoK, Sansa VI)

Here we see Sansa learn how NOT to be a Queen as she inwardly rejects Cersei’s toxic worldview. Not only does Sansa reject Cersei’s attitude, she also steps up and does Cersei’s job of calming the women when Cersei herself abdicates her queenly responsibilities as she leaves Maegor’s Holdfast during the Battle of the Blackwater.

Sansa is set aside as Joffrey’s betrothed at the end of book 2 and one would think that the theme of queenship would come to an end in her arc. However, it still pops up in the story, fx when Tyrion observes that Sansa has the abilities to have been a good Queen:

She is good at this, he thought, as he watched her tell Lord Gyles that his cough was sounding better, compliment Elinor Tyrell on her gown, and question Jalabhar Xho about wedding customs in the Summer Isles. His cousin Ser Lancel had been brought down by Ser Kevan, the first time he’d left his sickbed since the battle. He looks ghastly. Lancel’s hair had turned white and brittle, and he was thin as a stick. Without his father beside him holding him up, he would surely have collapsed. Yet when Sansa praised his valor and said how good it was to see him getting strong again, both Lancel and Ser Kevan beamed. She would have made Joffrey a good queen and a better wife if he’d had the sense to love her. (ASoS, Tyrion VIII)

The theme of queenship in relation to Sansa is even raised indirectly in the fourth book when she has been taken to the Vale by Petyr Baelish:

"You would not believe half of what is happening in King’s Landing, sweetling. Cersei stumbles from one idiocy to the next, helped along by her council of the deaf, the dim, and the blind. I always anticipated that she would beggar the realm and destroy herself, but I never expected she would do it quite so fast. It is quite vexing. I had hoped to have four or five quiet years to plant some seeds and allow some fruits to ripen, but now … it is a good thing that I thrive on chaos. What little peace and order the five kings left us will not long survive the three queens, I fear.”

“Three queens?” She did not understand.

Nor did Petyr choose to explain.(AFfC, Alayne II)

Baelish never explains his cryptic remark and fans have theorized a lot about who the three queens that Baelish refers to are. Cersei is certainly one of them but few people consider Sansa as a candidate as one of those queens. However, it is important to consider the context for this remark of his. We learn that Baelish’s plans for Sansa include a marriage between her and Harry the Heir as a means to use the Knights of the Vale to retake the North. That would put both Sansa and him in open rebellion to the Iron Throne - and it very likely that he plans to set up Sansa as Queen in the North as a step for him to realize his ambitions of power, which very likely would be him taking the Iron Throne for himself - as in the show.

The show also subtly hints at Sansa as Queen in various ways. Fx in season 3, a very subtle hint that may be foreshadowing is introduced in the very first episode - after Sansa has been set aside - when Ros tells Shae this:

This is a particularly interesting detail because it invokes an age-old tradition of announcing royal births with both a series of gun salutes as well as specially composed bell peals. It is a tradition that is still in use in the United Kingdom where the birth of Prince George in 2013 was celebrated with a special bell peal that lasted 3 hours! (x).  

Thus, Sansa’s birth was celebrated as if she were a royal princess, which is a curious detail since the Starks have not been Kings in the North for several centuries.

This is a detail that was invented for the show - and I cannot help but wonder if this apparently innocuous detail might be a piece of cleverly hidden foreshadowing of Sansa’s eventual fate. She may end up becoming Queen, which isn’t a far-fetched idea since queenship is a theme the runs through her narrative arc in the books - even after she’s no longer betrothed to Joffrey. Sansa is, in many respects, a foil to Cersei and it is through Cersei that she learns how NOT to be a Queen! Neither should we forget that in the moment of crisis during the Battle of Blackwater, it was Sansa who stepped up and performed Cersei’s role when the latter abandoned her duties. (x)

Furthermore, in season 7, the show subtly compares and contrasts Cersei, Daenerys and Sansa as rulers - even though Sansa is not a queen. This is done both through the similarities in their costuming but also through a direct comparison of their actions. Cersei’s forces seizes the food of the Reach in order to feed her allies and Daenerys burns all of these very important resources even though she cannot feed her armies. In contrast, we see Sansa collecting the foodstuffs of the North at Winterfell in order to feed both her people but also any refuges that might seek shelter there. However, she also expressly states that if there’s any surplus food (or if they don’t need it), then it is to be returned to the people who delivered it. Thus, we see Cersei stealing food to prop up her own rule, we see Daenerys destroy food even though she needs it - and in contrast we see Sansa securing food through voluntary donations and planning for it to be returned if it turns out that they won’t need it.

So even though Sansa is not technically a Queen (and we actually see her refuse the Crown of the North when it is indirectly offered), she acts like one - and she’s the one who is shown as a better leader that the two rival Queens in the South.

Thank you for the ask and sorry about the late answer.

[roseunspindle]

The Hidden Targaryen King Aegon “Jon” Targaryen “The DragonWolf”  and His Queens, Sansa of House Stark and Ygritte of the Free Folk

- Ygritte and Jon talk? Maybe in a “i get why you did what you did, still mad though” (on both sides as both manipulated one another) but she doesn’t die during the attack and when Jon brings the Free Folk to the Wall, she comes with. (He thinks she hates him forever and would never take him back even though he’d like to try when they could be honest, she is like, what you aren’t going to fucking steal me now when we could be together?) ah the joys of cultural miscommunication (also Jon just assuming people hate him).

Jon still gets murdered only now Ygritte is also there defending his body, though she does not trust this witch woman. He comes back from the dead, and Ygritte has had enough and is like, you leave here Jon Snow you better plan of stealing me to go with you. (Though she doesn’t want him to leave, nor does she want to leave her people.)

The Sansa shows up, and Ygritte at first thinks she’s a rival, only once she learns this is one of Jon’s sisters (the “proper lady”) She actually agrees with Sansa about trying to re-take Winterfell as she doesn’t like her people having to live amongst Crows (even if some are okay, yes Samwell, you are a nice crow).

 She finds herself trying to give Sansa a boost in confidence as they are both “kissed by fire”. 

Jon does not make dumb decisions during The Battle of the Bastards and Rickon lives (because reasons) and numbers help of course, but dogged determination and desperation lend strength too and they win. (Jon still gets to beat the poo out of Ramsay).

Baelish actually shows up a day and half later with the Knight’s of the Vale, thinking he was coming to Sansa’s rescue... Yeah, he looks like a dumbass. Lord Royce is very suspicious of this (and Sansa has no need for Baelish at all in this timeline.) 

Ygritte only tried a little to make Sansa act more like a Wildling woman, before accepting that Sansa is a Westerosi Lady and respects that power (especially watching Sansa start getting Winterfell back into shape, it’s impressive) Sansa also accepts that Ygritte is also worthy of respect (she has spent long missing Arya so that helps) and is both a fighter and a woman, and feminine in the way wildling women are feminine. 

Things settle, Jon of course tries to insist that Winterfell is Sansa and Rickon’s, but Rickon will have none of it and defers to Jon as his “elder brother”, so Jon is named King in the North (Ygritte grumbling that they are south and Sansa giggles while poking her in the ribs).

Ser Davos and Meera are the ones who go to Dragonstone (because you don’t send your king right off to a potentially dangerous situation especially on the eve of a battle.) Meera went partly to get away from the Three Eyed Raven and partly because Davos can be the talking part, Meera can be proper northern representation and one who had fully seen the White Walkers.

Daenerys is still very annoyed and still tries to do the “open rebellion” schtick but Davos and Meera aren’t buying, Tyrion has no-one to ship Daenerys with, Daenerys has no one to hold captive.

Edmure Tully finally shows his face outside of Riverun to pledge to Sansa as Queen of the Trident. (he won’t accept Jon as he has no Tully blood.) There is grumbling from the northerners as that is their lady stark...the soldiers who came with Edmure are like, yeah, well she’s our Queen Sansa....) it’s all very mature.

Meera and Davos pretty much agree that Daenerys has zero interest in helping anyone not willing to praise her for it and make her a ruler and also zero concept of future problems. 

Daenerys does her “kneel or die thing” and Davos and Meera are like, yeah, no, we’re done here, no point staying. (Then Meera gets a letter from Bran and Samwell and Gilly, who have found that Jon is the true heir to the throne blah blah blah....) Meera may be a little smug when she tells Daenerys that it would appear that styling herself Queen of Westeros has her in open rebellion to the true Targaryen king. (Ser Davos may cough and step on her foot a little for that one)

Jon and Sansa meanwhile are having a moment adjusting their worldview and Ygritte just spells it out that hey, that means Jon and Sansa can stop pretending they don’t want to fuck and Jon can steal both of them guilt free now. Lord Royce points out that Sansa and Jon should marry, and solidify their claims. Petyr missteps some more (he’d grown too confident) and Sansa is also named Queen Regent of the Vale of Arryn so if Jon and Sansa wed, that unites the riverlands, the north, and the vale through marriage as well as Jon’s birthright. 

Jon decides to do as Aegon did and opts for marrying officially both Sansa and Ygritte (after stealing them the night before the wedding). Ygritte decides, ignore the cold, she’s wearing a silk dress for this, (Sansa makes it). she accepts the Targaryen last name.

Daenerys finally shows up in the north (sans supplies naturally) if only to try to prove to herself Jon isn’t a Targaryen... but he is and she hates it, Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal all three react to him. She is furious, and that he is already wed, to non-Targaryens as thy could have married and ruled together. 

Ygritte points out a four-way marriage isn’t a terrible idea...then Margaery Tyrell, escaped from Kings Landing and just missed her families slaughter by the Lannisters shows up and accepts marriage to Jon as well (okay totally Sansa, Jon is set dressing) to secure the Reach once the long night was over.  Daenerys tries to resist, but Margaery sets all her skill to working her way round her until Daenerys would assume most of this was her own idea.... 

The Long night is a wake-up call. It’s bloody, terrifying and it lasts for nearly five nights, at last Jon slays the nightking, nearly becoming him but Dragonfire courtesy of Rhaegal purifies him and prevents the infection. 

Bran “sees” how the Valyrians came to bond with Dragons, and  when during the Long Night Battle Lyanna’s crypt is broken, revealing three dragon eggs that had been buried with her.  he shares the info with Sansa, Margaery, and Ygritte... Sansa takes the pale blue egg, Margaery attaches very much to a pink and gold speckled egg, Ygritte and Viserion are inseparable, Rhaegal and Jon have bonded as well.

Daenerys thought sharing her abilities and power would make her feel lesser...but as she teaches Jon and the others old valyrian, as they ride the skies about Winterfell while they rest for the next battle...she begins to relax in ways she thought she never would. 

Arya may inform Gendry, the newly minted Lord Baratheon, that she supposes she’ll have to marry him, for the political alliance of it all.... she is smiling however and warns him she will never wear a dress but she’s better at sums than Sansa at least so she’s got that going for her. (Gendry is delighted and after a conversation with Bran who “saw” how to make Valyrian Steel he is happy to give her a valyrian steel dagger, free from the taint of betrayal and petyr baelish.

They march on King’s Landing, Daenerys, Jon, and Ygritte a-dragonback. The battle is swift Euron greyjoys fleet no defense for three dragons with riders, and Jamie rings the bells of surrender. 

Cersei is triedfor treason, as Jon has decided to count Robert’s Rebellion as just, and that by conquest, Robert had claimed the throne, so Cersei had committed treason by claiming her bastard born children as “baratheons” (sansa quietly mourns little Myrcella and Tommen, who had both been so young, but had truly tried as best they could to be kind to her during her imprisonment in the red keep)  Magaery also mourns Tommen, who had been kind and sweet and had apparently killed himself in his grief over her supposed death. 

Cersei is found guilty naturally and is executed, Jon opting for doing it himself, with longclaw. Remembering lord starks words.

Yara Greyjoy and Quentyn Martell are both willing to join the polycule rulers of westeros. 

The reach is wrested back from Bronn... 

[silkygoldmilkweed]

Petyr Baelish vs Sandor Clegane: A Tale of Two Suitors

GRRM will be dead before he finishes the books so we’ll never get a chance to ask him about the construction process once the whole thing is out there, but until he says otherwise, I believe that he created Jon, Dany, Arya, Sansa, Sandor, Ned, Bobby, Rhaegar, Lyanna, Cat and Robb, and then built out many of the other characters as mirrors and foils to them. 

Theon is failed Jon.

Joffrey is the anti-Jon.

And I believe with all my heart that Littlefinger is the anti-Sandor. 

Name almost any character quality and Sandor has the opposite aspect to Littlefinger. Littlefinger is words. Sandor is deeds. Littlefinger is manipulation and lies. Sandor is brutal honesty. Littlefinger is selfish. Sandor is selfless. Littlefinger is either amoral or immoral or maybe both. Sandor lives by a strict personal code of how men, women and people generally are supposed to behave. Littlefinger is sinuous and simpering and sly like Hiss in Disney’s Robin Hood movie. The Hound is bold and strong and aggressive and all heart. 

But both of them want to fuck Sansa Stark. 

(My headcanon, BTW, is that Littlefinger’s nickname is really because he has a tiny dick and that it was Brandon “Wild Wolf” Stark that gave him the nickname. Sandor, of course, is prodigiously endowed. LOL.)

I think the show grants Littlefinger’s death scene a few nods to the SanSan subtext in Sansa’s life, and Littlefinger’s failure gives us some insight into where the Hound succeeded, even though it may not have been acknowledged at the time.

“Lady Sansa, I’ve known you since you were a girl. I’ve protected you–”

OK, this is excellent. When was the first time they met? According to Littlefinger circa season four, “The first time I saw you, you were just a child. A girl from the North, come to the capital for the first time. Not a child any longer.” So the first time they ever met was the Tourney of the Hand, and at that time, Sansa was officially a “child” or a “girl.” (Sandor met her just before that, and then won the tourney in question by protecting Loras from Gregor.) 

Anyway, LF’s been creeping on Sansa from the get-go (he puts his hand on her at the Tourney and Ned gives him a death glare) but more importantly, beginning as early as season four (MAYBE) but most certainly by season seven, Sansa is no longer a girl but a woman. SophieT is only 21 or something, but in Westerosi terms, Sansa is a twice-married widow of maturity and dignity. The way she dresses she could pass for a middle-aged spinster, but of course her face gives away her youth. 

Long story short, the show wants you to know that it’s no longer creepy if Sandor thinks she’s hot, because age difference or no, they’re both adults now and free people, and able to consent to sexual intercourse if they’re both of sound mind and body, etc.

“Protected me? By selling me to the Boltons?”

Littlefinger is first and foremost a flesh peddler. A whoremonger, as Lord Royce calls him. He sells Sansa’s body as readily as he brokers a street prostitute’s blow job work.

Counterpoint: Sandor Clegane doesn’t run around pimping out little girls. Can you even imagine? Quite to the contrary, he spends all his free time running interference between creeps and his Stark girls. Honestly, one of the most striking underanalyzed moments in the histories of the Hound is when he and Arya are with the farmer and his daughter, and the father is doing his prayers to the Seven. “We ask the Maiden to protect Sally’s virtue and keep her from the clutches of depravity,” says farmer dad. It’s at that moment that he interrupts, “Do you have to do all seven of the fuckers?” Now, mostly he’s literally starving and he just wants to get on with it, but I also think there’s an unspoken freaked-out reaction there: There’s no point in praying! The gods aren’t going to keep her from getting raped. They never stop any of that shit. You either can fight it off yourself or she’ll suffer it, same as all the other maidens.

The spectre of sexual assualt looms heavy over Sandor and Sansa’s “relationship,” not least because of the “fuck her bloody” line but also because of the size difference, the age difference, the power difference, his known predilection for violence, and his obvious overwhelming desire for her (not to mention Gregor’s history as a rapist, most famously of Elia Martell). But even though he could take her at any time, and she is quite often in very vulnerable situations with him, he never does anything untoward. (Show canon only, I know the book canon is slightly more salacious and risque, in word if not in deed.) But even though he could have stolen her against her will, and he should have, most likely, he politely asked her if she wanted to be absconded with and when she said no, he walked away. 

As he and Omar put it so succinctly, “A man’s got to have a code.” No stealing girls who don’t want to be stolen. 

Or as the vows of Westerosi knighthood put it, “In the name of the Maid, I charge you to protect all women.”

Littlefinger grossly exploits women’s bodies. Sandor puts his own body between women and danger. Littlefinger sells. Sandor frees. What a difference.

“If we could speak alone, I could explain everything.”

Littlefinger is a sneak. And a liar. He can’t do anything in the open, because he needs to lurk in the shadows to play his little games. It’s a kick to rewatch once you understand the extent of Littlefinger’s dishonesty, because you can absolutely see Aiden Gillen adjust his performance ever so slightly when LF is lying. It’s outstanding acting, although of course I loathe anything and everything LF-related.

Sandor, meanwhile, is honest to a fault. “A dog will die for you, but never lie to you.” 

“Sometimes when I’m trying to understand a person’s motives, I play a little game. What’s the worst reason you have for turning me against my sister? That’s what you do, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve always done. Turn family against family, turn sister against sister. That’s what you did to our mother and Aunt Lysa, and that’s what you tried to do to us.”

If we play this game with Sandor’s motives, I think we come to the conclusion that the worst thing he could want was to have consensual sex with a girl who was too young and too highborn and too fragile and too weak. He didn’t want Winterfell. He didn’t want money. He didn’t want power. He legitimately wanted to help Sansa, and later Arya. (I will insist on my deathbed that the Arya-for-ransom deal was bullshit generally but at best a poorly-thought-out plan to get him an entree to House Stark.)

The other thing is the sister divisions bit. I would add that Sansa and Arya (”different as the sun and moon”) have but a handful of things in common: Winterfell, their parents and siblings, and Sandor Clegane. He’s one of the things that binds Sansa and Arya together, rather than tears them apart. They approach him from different positions but end up in the same place.

Last but hardly least, he is the one single person who ever fought for both Sansa and Arya, who were almost completely abandoned after their father was killed. 

They were left alone in the wilderness. Arya had a little of Yoren and Jaquen and Gendry, but she was overwhelmingly scrapping on her own. Sansa had a little of Varys and Olenna and Littlefinger, but again, she was basically out there all by herself, being hunted by lions. The Hound was the only one who fought for them both. He is a tie that binds.

“Sansa, please.”

Ah, the pathetic begging. Show!Sandor never grovels for her attention. On the contrary, he discourages and frightens her on several occasions. He doesn’t need her the way Littlefinger is desperate for Sansa, both sexually and politically. Why? Because Littlefinger is weak and needy, whereas Sandor is strong and needy. Sandor desires Sansa Stark, but he doesn’t debase either of them to get what he wants. If what he wants is not freely given, he can walk away, whereas Littlefinger always crawls closer.

“I’m a slow learner, it’s true. But I do learn.”

Oh, my sweet Sansa. To me this line is so evocative and nostalgic and tragic. If viewed from a pure SanSan perspective, this is Sansa saying that she had to suffer through years of loneliness and torment at the hands of villains to be able to see what a good and rare and precious thing she had once had in Sandor Clegane. 

This line pairs beautifully with the other heartbreaker from Sansa to Littlefinger: “Back then I only thought about what I wanted, never about what I had. I was a stupid girl.” She’s had years to think about how her girlish, inexperienced, naive and entitled values prevented her from seeing that her True Knight was standing in front of her the whole time, right behind the beautiful, odious, vicious idiot king.

“Give me a chance to defend myself. I deserve that.”

Ugh. Let’s return to season six to reply to this. “I don’t believe you anymore. I don’t need you anymore. You can’t protect me. You won’t even be able to protect yourself if I tell Brienne to cut you down.”

Sansa sees now that she is much stronger and more powerful than Littlefinger ever was or could hope to be. He is a grubby little pretender and he destroyed her family for his own selfish ends, and he deserves every bit of the justice that he is about to receive.

Basically, my girl has become a woman, and she is free of all the bullshit men who have been using her for years. Tywin is dead. Littlefinger is dead. The Boltons are dead. 

She is unbound. She is a woman, and she can choose for herself, and I’m pretty sure what she chooses will be Sandor Clegane.

[lady-alayne]

Game of Thrones: An Angry Recap

Season 7 Episode 6: Beyond the Wall

Winterfell:

Sigh. Okay. Let's do this.

Arya and Sansa's relationship is all over the place. After a heartfelt reunion where it seems the old tension between the sisters had been set aside, Arya became more and more paranoid of everyone and everything, resulting in the lurking bonanza last episode where it seems Arya got royally littlefingered.

Because just as Petyr planned (presumably), Arya jumped to all the wrong conclusions about the letter Sansa was forced to write to her brother, urging him to bend the knee to Joffrey. “Why didn't you just murder everyone instead, like I would have?” she snaps at her sister. “This is what this show is about! Violence begets violence, and it's awesome! No wonder everyone on reddit hates you.” Ah, sisterly love.

It breaks my heart that GRRM wrote the Stark sisters as polar opposites, but equally strong. Arya is the more traditional Strong Female Character(TM), portraying stereotypically male traits: She wants to learn how to fight, she has a temper, is reckless, and she solves her problems with violence rather than words. Sansa, on the other hand, embraces her femininity. And that's wonderful. She navigates through the snake pit of King's Landing because she is polite, well-trained, and knows when to shut up and swallow her anger and then attack later out of a position of power. Although different, the sisters are both strong, resilient, and grow more and more powerful over the course of the series. GRRM has done a beautiful job portraying women as real people with unique characters.

Enter D&D! While doing some pseudo-research for their characters, biding their time until they ran out of books so they can make up their own shit, they decided to A) dumb Arya and Sansa down to have “invincible killer robot whose trauma made her want to murder everyone” and “stupid girl who is stupid and everyone takes advantage of” and then to B) PIT THESE CHARACTERS AGAINST EACH OTHER IN THE MOST FORCED CONFLICT IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION.

Are we really supposed to believe that single letter poses such a threat??? To make this conflict work, Arya had to be:

stupid enough to think Sansa meant what she wrote

evil enough to blackmail Sansa with it

paranoid enough to think Sansa has ulterior motives and wants to usurp Jon or whatever (can you usurp something that is RIGHTFULLY YOURS?)

Sansa had to be

stupid enough to believe that letter poses a threat—as if the Northern lords wouldn't immediately know Sansa wrote what Cersei told her to write

evil enough to send Brienne away, a woman in the perfect position to mediate and de-escalate

paranoid enough to break into Arya's chambers and try to steal the letter back

And all just so D&D can create random conflict out of thin air because, uh, good television.

Also at Winterfell, we get out weekly dose of two minutes Petyr Baelish screentime. (And it's not enough. It's never enough.) It looks like Sansa and Petyr are friends again and she asks him for his council (after telling him to go away, telling him she's smarter than him, and gloomily talking about what he wants, but who cares about characterization in this show? The plot demands that Sansa and Petyr speak.) Petyr helpfully suggests to have Brienne talk to the girls, as she has an invested interest in those two being on the same side, which makes Sansa send Brienne away. Logic(TM)!

As mentioned above, Sansa then sneaks into Arya's chambers to steal the letter back from her, and finds Arya's work clothes under the bed. To dial up the creepy, Arya then appears and... threatens to kill Sansa so she can know how it feels to wear beautiful dresses??? Arya, YOU COULD HAVE WORN ALL THE BEAUTIFUL DRESSES, but you WANTED TO BE A KNIGHT INSTEAD. Before stabbing her sister, Arya changes her mind/reveals she was bluffing (who can tell with this demon child), and gives Sansa Littlefinger's dagger because... reasons. Oh boy, that dagger is going places! Tune in next week to see Sansa give the dagger to Gilly's four year old baby when Sam and family turn up in Winterfell on their way back to castle black! And stay tuned for season 8, where we find out THE DAGGER IS AZOR AHAI!

Beyond the Wall:

Jon, Tormund, Jorah, Gendry, the Brotherhood Without Banners, and a few nameless extras to be killed off as needed hike through a blizzard during Operation Catch a Wight, and we are immediately treated to a rape joke! This time Tormund jokes about raping Jon because “fucking is best to stay warm.” It's funny, because it's two men! Haha, gay! Like Loras! Lol!

But Jon is not just the butt of the joke (I couldn't resist), we are also reminded once again that he's super nice and honorable, much like his “father,” and so he offers Jorah Longclaw back. But Jorah declines, because he's also super honorable and a good guy(TM). I was rooting for him to take the sword and stab Jon with it while yelling “I'm getting rid of the competition! Khaleesi, here I come!!!” But, oh well, when D&D fanservice they somehow never take my wishes into account.  Wait while I send them a raven and complain.

My raven seems to have reach them, because a little later the Hound insists he does not like gingers, and all the SanSan shippers break into crisis mode while I laugh. Heehee. Then we have the incredible honor and privilege to witness a dialogue that includes the words “dick,” “cock,” and “pussy” within what feels like 0.000001 seconds. Finally, proof of GoT's level of sophistication that everyone is talking about. But... Tormund x Brienne, so yay!

The shipping does not last long, because out of nowhere ZOMBIE ICE BEAR ATTACK!!! Run for your lives!!! We watch with bated breath while the bear threatens to kill our beloved heroes and hope he will kill one of the suspiciously random background extras instead, but then we realize we are already dead inside when it comes to this show, so we would not care either way. By the way, is anyone else reminded of Star Wars whenever the Brotherhood Without Banners switch on their fire swords?

But killer zombie bears are not the only threat beyond the wall, and soon the men meet a white walker taking his pack of wights out for a walk. Now I feel safe enough to scream again. THE WIGHTS ARE WEARING HOODS WHILE THE MEN ARE NOT. THE UNDEAD PEOPLE ARE WEARING PROTECTIVE HEADWEAR WHILE THE LIVING PERSONS ARE NOT. THIS SHOW MAKES NO SENSE. NO SENSE. UGH!!!!

Because this is Operation Catch a Wight, the men decide to, you know, catch a wight, and set a trap for some reason. I guess just attacking their enemy without the enemy knowing they were even there would not be sneaky enough! Luckily, the dragonglass proves potent, and Jon successfully makes the white walker burst into a billion pieces AND re-deads the un-dead! DOUBLE KILL! …... except for one wight, who is still undead for practicality and thus immediately captured. Lucky!

The team soon realizes their chances are dire at best, and decide to send Gendry back to Eastwatch so he can send a raven to Daenerys. GENDRY. WITHOUT ANY WEAPONS. ALONE. THROUGH A BLIZZARD. While Gendry runs of to his certain death—who would survive a marathon through a snowstorm?— Jon & Friends also run to their certain death, as they are suddenly attacked by an army of thousands of wights. But—oh joy!—there's a lake there! And the ice on the lake is super special and only breaks AFTER ALL THE IMPORTANT CHARACTERS have already passed! But then it drags all the wights, plus one nameless extra for supposed shock value, down to their icy (re-)deaths, and our heroes manage to escape on a strategically placed isle in the middle of the lake to wait for their rescue.

Dragonstone:

Meanwhile, Dany and Tyrion are having some girl talk because Missandei seems to be MIA. After establishing that Jon is, like, super in love with Dany, you guys, and of course Tyrion knows that because he's SO SMART!!!, Tyrion broaches the topic of succession and SUGGESTS IMPLEMENTING A DEMOCRACY. I mean... yeah, Democracies are nice like 94% of the time, unless you elect someone like Donald Trump Euron Greyjoy. But it just gets SO FUCKING BORING how Tyion is always so super duper good and even his mistakes just make him more human and more lovable, isn't Tyrion just the awesomest, hooray hooray, all hail the best character in the history of the universe.

After what seems like 2 minute flight time, the raven from Eastwatch arrives and delivers Jon's cry for help. The men are trapped in the wilderness, under attack, and in dire need of immediate rescue! Daenerys wastes no time leaping into action. “I have to fly North immediately to rescue the guy I have a lady boner for, the guy who has a sad boner for me, the guy who knows how to turn dragon glass into weapons, the grumpy fan favorite, and their friends... As soon as my seamstress has finished my new winter coat! What fur should I use? This one matches my eyes, but this one goes better with my skin tone!”

Back beyond the wall:

It seems as if Dany's seamstress is really fast, because Dany makes it to the little isle at the perfect moment—Thoros has just died for shock value (and let's face it, nobody cared about Thoros anyway), and the wights have just discovered that the lake has frozen again, and are about to attack, when—DRAGONS!!! Dany swoops in and saves the day. Everyone climbs aboard Drogon, EXCEPT FOR JON, who runs off on a one man “Fighting my way through thousands of wights to kill the Night's King while he's surrounded by his four friends who are all expecting me” mission. Naturally, he does not get far and soon joins nameless extra in the icy depths below. RIP Jon, RIP.

To make matters worse, the Night's King turns out to be an insanely accurate spear thrower, and pierces Viserion's heart. Now that was a death for shock value! The mighty dragon plunges out of the sky, and Dany watches him motionless. I suppose she was just shocked, but maybe that was also Emilia Clarke's inability to act.

Drogon and his human load then get the hell out of there, and—OH GOD!!! JON IS NOT DEAD!!! WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT???? HE'S ALIVE!!!!

And then IT'S BENJEN EX MACHINA!!! AND HE SAVES JON!!! AND HE PUTS HIM ON A HORSE!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!! AND JON SNOW IS SAVED!!!

Dany, it turns out, is very relieved about that, and immediately rushes to his side while he's lying in bed naked, recovering from almost freezing to death. Because that's how you get warm—you go to a somewhat warmer room and take off all your clothes. Then, when you freeze, you realize the cold outside was not so bad in comparison, so your body heals itself. Science(TM)!

[boredlikeaboss]

Petyr Baelish, the tragic hero of ASOIAF

Got it from reddit by user BeautifulMania

Long post beware lol

Petyr Baelish was born in 268 AC, making him 27 at the start of AGoT.

His father fought alongside Hoster Tully in the war of the Ninepenny Kings, and their friendship afforded Petyr the chance to be fostered by a great house once he was born.

The earliest memory we see of Petyr is when a very young Cat and Lysa served him mud pies, which he ate so much of that he was sick for a week. This shows just how young he was when he was first sent to Riverrun, and it’s very likely that his first conscious memories were of Riverrun.

He was too young to realize the differences between himself and his foster brother and sisters and understand social hierarchy. He grew up alongside Cat, Lysa, and Edmure as equals.

The Tullys were his family, and Riverrun was his home.

We see just how influential fostering can be in Ned and Robert’s relationship. They were closer to each other than they were to their true born brothers, and both of them looked on Jon Arryn as a father.

Hoster was a father figure to Petyr, and he was raised by the words Family, Duty, and Honor. He grew up in an idealized castle, dreaming of knights from songs and true love, very much the same as Sansa.

Even the Blackfish was like an uncle:

“Nonetheless, during all those years of Catelyn’s girlhood, it has been Brynden the Blackfish to whom Lord Hoster’s children has run with their tears and their tales, when Father was too busy and mother too ill. Catelyn, Lysa, Edmure… and yes, even Petyr Baelish, their father’s ward… he had listened to them all patiently, as he listened now, laughing at their triumphs and sympathizing with their childish misfortunes.”

As he and the Tullys got older, however, the differences between them were eventually understood.

Petyr, who came from the smallest of the Fingers in the Vale, earned the nickname Littlefinger, a constant reminder of his humble origins, poor holdings, and low birth.

Nevertheless he aspired to be a Tully, as he was raised to be. He was idealistic and loving, and despite the nickname he believed his could rise above his birth. It wasn’t as if he chose to be born the son of the poorest lord. What made one man better than another simply by being born from to different house? In his eyes, nothing.

Eventually, as the children grew older, things began to change. He, Cat, and Lysa played kissing games, as curious kids often do, and Petyr ended up developing feelings for his foster sister, Catelyn Tully.

He fell head over heels in love with her, and later, when the lords Bracken and Blackwood came to visit Riverrun, he and Cat spent the night dancing. Petyr and Edmure got drunk that same night, and he attempted to kiss Cat. When she rejected his advances we see how crushed he was here:

“And Petyr tried to kiss your mother, only she pushed him away. She laughed at him. He looked so wounded I thought my heart would burst, and afterward he drank until he passed out at the table. Uncle Brynden carried him up to bed before my father could find him like that.”

This was when he was then raped by his other foster sister, Lysa Tully. He was dragged up to bed, far too drunk to walk, let alone give consent. Lysa then stole into his room and comforted him. A young Petyr, in his drunken confusion, believed her to be Cat, and confessed his love to her.

Lysa ended up becoming pregnant from this encounter, which I’ll touch on a little later.

A few months later, when Petyr was just 14, he found out Cat was to be married to the 20 year old Brandon Stark.

Now, try and see things from Petyr’s perspective. He loves Catelyn, and due to his drunken encounter with Lysa, believing her to have been Cat, believes she loves him as well. Now here comes this older man from the savage north, known as the hot-blooded Wild Wolf, to steal Cat away against her will. It was an arranged marriage, and even we know Catelyn didn’t love Brandon, but was simply doing her duty.

Well, Petyr was raised by the words Family, Duty, and Honor. Family comes before duty, and Cat was not only his family, but family that he mistakenly believed loved him as he loved her. He believed he took Cat’s virginity, and thus had to protect her honor.

So he did what he believed was right, and challenged Brandon- despite the large age difference and physical ability- to a duel for Cat’s sake just as much as his own.

Before the duel Petyr asked Cat for her favor, still believing she loved him. As we know, she refused him and gave it to Brandon instead, as it was her duty. And Edmure, the boy who had grown up with him as a brother, offered to be Brandon’s squire. Two of his closest family members, whom he loved, chose a stranger over him, and all the same he fought on.

“That fight was over almost as soon as it began. Brandon was a man grown, and he drove Littlefinger all the way across the bailey and down the water stair, raining steel on him with every step, until the boy was staggering and bleeding from a dozen wounds. “Yield!” he called, more than once, but Petyr would only shake his head and fight on, grimly. When the river was lapping at their ankles, Brandon finally ended it, with a brutal backhand cut that bit through Petyr’s rings and leather into the soft flesh below the ribs, so deep that Catelyn was certain that the wound was mortal. He looked at her as he fell and murmured “Cat” as the bright blood came flowing out between his mailed fingers.“

Despite being beaten nearly to death, Petyr never once gave up trying to save the woman he loved. He was idealistic and a dreamer, again, just as Sansa was.

That duel was the last time he saw Cat’s face until the books begin. He sends her a letter afterward, but she only burns it unread.

He was injured so badly he could neither walk nor ride a horse, and all the same the man he looked to as a father expelled him from his home in a closed litter before he even finished healing.

But was the duel truly the reason for that?

“How would you like to spend your life on that bleak shore, surrounded by slatterns and sheep pellets? That was what my father meant for Petyr. Everyone thought it was because of that stupid duel with Brandon Stark, but that wasn’t so.“

Hoster found out about the pregnancy, and had the child aborted.

“Father said I ought to thank the gods that so great a lord as Jon Arryn was willing to take me soiled, but I knew it was only for the swords. I had to marry Jon, or my father would have turned me out as he did his brother, but it was Petyr I was meant for. I am telling you all this so you will understand how much we love each other, how long we have suffered and dreamed of one another. We made a baby together, a precious little baby.” Lysa put her hands flat against her belly, as if the child was still there. “When they stole him from me, I made a promise to myself that I would never let it happen again.”

Petyr lost his family and his home for getting Lysa pregnant, after she raped him.

In one fell swoop Petyr lost the woman he loved, his foster sister, his foster uncle, was betrayed by his foster brother, was kicked out of his home by the man he saw as a father, all while being on the precipice of death. He lost everything he had ever known or loved. And why? For trying to do what he believed was right and for following the ideals he was raised with as a Tully.

Everyone believes his issues stem from his unrequited love of Cat, but it’s so much deeper than that. He lost everything, and was banished from the only place he felt he belonged.

This world-shattering loss eventually transforms the idealistic Petyr into Littlefinger, but Littlefinger is a necessary mask.

Petyr Baelish is a hero. His is the classic tale of the underdog fighting against the corrupt elite. A poor, lowly boy, small in stature and looked down upon his entire life. The love of his life ripped away from him against her wishes by a more powerful, wealthier man. A man who belonged to a savage northern house that holds dominion of over two thirds of Westeros.

After he bears witness to the ugly nature of Westerosi culture and the system that governs it, young Petyr Baelish sets out to undermine and destroy the twisted social system that favors birth and cruelty above merit and kindness.

Through hard work and careful planning he climbs the social ladder step by step, facing off against an elite upper class far more fortunate than himself.

A true retelling of David vs. Goliath.

Petyr Baelish, like the classic fairy tale hero, eventually ends up bringing down the evil King Joffrey.

Joffrey himself is a pure manifestation of just how flawed the Westerosi system truly is. He represents everything Petyr Baelish despises. He was a cruel, incompetent child, yet was put in charge of the entire realm simply due to it being his “birthright”.

As long as a system that allows that to happen is in place, the realm can never truly prosper. A leader must be someone who earns their position, not one who is simply entitled it.

And so the whole system must be destroyed and rebuilt.

That burden is a heavy one, but someone has to step forth and bear it. Someone has to change the way things are, because they simply can’t go on as they are. It will be difficult, there will be sacrifice, innocents will suffer in the process, and the man who bears this burden may have to give up even his own soul in order to move forward, but that is the price of a better world, and Petyr Baelish is paying it. For all of us.

Petyr Baelish is the Pimp That Was Promised, and the one true hero of A Song of Ice and Fire.

[jodiwalker]

The Best Things Happening on Game of Thrones Right Now

If the current season of Game of Thrones is fan service, then consider me — a fan — serviced, and sign me up, baby. We've been through the hard stuff, we deserve this. This series has finally broken through the stratosphere of TV criticism and into the land of pure joy where Arya can be both a raging lil' sociopath and a beloved protagonist.

So this is neither a review nor a recap, a critique nor a thoughtful analysis influenced by my superior status as a "book-reader." Instead, it is the most advanced of all literary art forms: a list of I've been tickled by in the first two episodes of season 7. The best things happening on Game of Thrones right now definitively are:

Very Silly Reveals That Are Supposed to Change the Game (of Thrones) But Are Kind of Just Really Obvious Solutions

1. There's a Shit Ton of Dragon Glass at…Dragonstone

Of all the things I expected out of this season—reunions, rifts, Cersei dramatically guzzling wine, Arya masked-murderin', Dany sittin' on thrones, hopefully the glorious return of Gendry's biceps—I never anticipated quite this much focus on igneous rocks. Jon Stark's laser focus on digging up dragon glass is starting to sound like a Goop newsletter, and it's not that I wouldn't subscribe (imagine: the fur recs! the tips for sultry lashes! the straightforward syntax without any annoying exclamation points!), it's just all a little more plainly sated than I expected. Jon calls, like, eight Big Chamber Meetings to tell all the Northern elders, plus Lil' Lyanna Mormont that their number one priority is to find dragon glass because it's the only thing they can create weapons out of in mass to kill white walkers. Those meetings go a little something like this:

Jon: How are we gonna kill white walkers?!

Northerners: DRAGONGLASS!

Jon: And where are we gonna find it?!

Sam, from Oldtown: AT—AND YOU'RE REALLY NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS—DRAGONSTONE!

[Ed. note: I've edited out the regular interruptions from Sansa that give me extreme conflicting emotional anxiety, but we'll get to those later in the "So You're Co-Ruling with Your Half-Sister Who's Actually Your Cousin and She's Recently Developed a Mind of Her Own After Surviving Extreme Trauma" section.]

Sending Sam to Oldtown to train as a maester is like the coconut oil/Franks RedHot of Westeros: that shit works on everything. At the Citadel, Sam begins scooping soup, souping poop (in a scene I would have exchanged for an hour-long loop of gruesome murders), and most importantly, sneaking into the restricted section of the library like some sort of chubby lovechild between Voldemort and Harry Potter. He even gets shut down by Jim Broadbent (aka Archmaester Marwyn, absolutely killing the wise, gives-no-shits maester game) and sneaks in anyway. And what did Samwell find in the restricted section?

Well, Sam steals maybe five books and finds the exact answer he needs, plus one he didn't even know he should be looking for—more on that in a minute.

And you know what? That's kind of dumb and unrealistic, but Sam deserves this. He's had a tough life and his dad is a jerk that wanted to kill him and his brother is (well, used to be) the hot guy from Unreal, and everyone shits on him all the time even though he is legitimately the nicest person alive in their godforsaken, feces infested world — dude has earned finding the solution to saving mankind after exactly 10 minutes of cozy reading with his cute wildling life partner and their ageless baby.

So, Sam finds out (via a super lame picture that Jaime could have drawn with his strong hand) that there's a big ol' dragon glass mine at—you're not going to believe this—Dragonstone. All they've gotta do is dig it up. Well, and, y'know, get past Daenerys Targaryen, heir of Dragonstone who recently arrived on its sandy, glass-filled shores. And that other thing that Sam found?

2. The Cure for Greyscale is Just…Peeling Off the Greyscale

Well, no fucking shit, Sam.  I mean, listen, I know I was just singing the kid's praises, but it's pretty crazy to act like you just found the magical cure for Greyscale in your magical secret books when that cure is…peeling off the Greyscaled skin and then putting a bunch of medieval Neosporin on it. But whatever, it's really sweet that Sam wants to help Jorah Mormont so badly because of his affection for Lord Commander Mormont and is willing to flay him to save his life (and definitely give himself Greyscale with the way he's using those gloves). So go ahead, Sam, peel off that Greyscale in your secret Dr. Pimple sessions—your solution might be obvious, but at least it's not dumb, dumb, dumb…

3. The Dragon Feller That's Just…a Crossbow

So, John is concerned with defeating the white walkers because, y'know, strong moral fiber and a her survivor's guilt complex and all that. But Cersei is mainly concerned with defeating anyone who would try to take the Iron Throne from her that she didn't already blow up with magic fire. And that means she's got to look alive about the tiny blonde Targaryen heading her way who's bringing, along with her legitimate claim to the throne, her three big ass dragons that were, coincidentally, born from a magic fire.

It's going to take something big to defeat those dragons. Something magical. Something much more powerful than even wildfire. Something like…

A BIG ASS CROSSBOW, BABY! Yeah, that will be great for killing dragons — if the dragons are sitting still, 1,000 years old, and already dying peacefully of natural causes. It's okay, Qyburn. They can't all be skull-crushing Frankenzombies held together by Husky R' Us armor level ideas, buddy.

Arya and Her Whole Thing

I remember when How to Get Away With Murder premiered there were a bunch of think pieces that were all, Finally! A Female Anti-Hero for Us to Love Just Like All Those Dude Anti-Heroes We Loved on A&E and HBO! Of course, no one loved Viola Davis' anti-hero like they loved Walter White because people don’t like to love flawed women like they like to love flawed men (and the show's not as good, but Viola is). And so, when Arya gave the best revenge performance of all time at the top of the season 7 premiere, there were a bunch of (to be fair, legitimate) articles that were all Should We Really Be Rooting for Arya? Is Arya a Sociopath Now? Arya Sure Looked like She Wanted to Kill Ed Sheeran, an Innocent Soldier, Who We Will Tell You Later How WE'D Like to Kill, But for Different Totally Valid Reasons.

So let me just say, yes! Arya is a probably a semi-psychopathic now, and yes! We should be rooting for her. She is but a simple mercenary setting out to avenge the death of her loved ones using humble blood magic. Yes, she killed Walder Frey, and yes, she fed him to his sons, and yes she then skinned him and wore his face in order to poison all those sons who she had just fed a pie made out of their dad, but you know what she also did…spared the women who hadn’t done anything wrong except be born into that nasty family. And yes she maybe only spared them to have this bad ass parting line, delivered with just perfect level-headed menace by Maisy Williams: "When people ask you what happened here — tell them the North remembers. Tell them winter came for House Frey."

But she is Arya and I love her, and I support her in anything she does…unless she kills any of the characters I like, in which case I will have to write some think pieces.

Sibling Dramzzz: Stark Edition

And speaking of Starks you have to keep your eye on, Sansa and Jon are having kind of a hard time co-parenting the North, and that's probably because people just loooove putting Jon in charge, even though Sansa should kind of technically be in charge, the only problem is, that Sansa's so annoying. Now, Sansa has made large strides toward being less annoying. But for every two steps forward (occasionally telling Lord Baelish to go fuck himself, knowing about war, not being a moralizing idealist), she interrupts Jon six times in their council meetings and tells him how stupid he is.

And listen, I get it — I have siblings. No one knows you better, and no one knows they know you better. When someone acts like they understand you better than you understand yourself, and worse, they're probably right, it can be trying. When Sansa tells Jon that he's going to get his head chopped off like his virtuous father and brother before him, she's not necessarily, but she is annoying. In a made-up world with dragons and child-sacrifice and, like, constant incest that's often not very relatable, I find this Jon and Sansa stuff frustratingly relevant.

The complexity of familial bonds is a language that spans universes (I mean, I guess that's ignoring the thing I just said about near-constant incest), so when Sansa says just the right bratty thing — "Joffrey never let anyone question his decisions, do you think he was a good king?" — to set Jon off, or when Jon and Sansa get on the same page about something, then he immediately changes his mind and announces it at the dinner table, so she questions his decision in front of all their gossipy cousins…it's normal family stuff, just at much higher, head-chopping stakes.

My great fear is that the tentative but often sweet partnership these two eldest "children" of Ned Stark have formed will somehow be ruined by Littlefinger. So boyyyyyy was it gratifying when Jon choked his old ass out when he was all I wanted to fuck your step-mom and now I want to fuck your half-sister, just thought I'd tell you that right here in front of your dead dad's crypt. And mannnnn was it concerning when Sansa backed down from publicly challenging Jon about his decision to leave the North and sale to Dragonstone the moment she learned he was leaving her in charge of the North in his absence, then immediately looked to Littlefinger for…what? Approval? Guidance? Shared joy? None are great options.

Just get though this Jon and Sansa  — I promise you’ll be best friends when you’re adults!

Sibling Dramzzz: Greyjoy Edition

Yo, this family is Messed! Up! Theon jumped off a ship rather than risk saving his sister Yara from their super-pirate uncle who's now taking Yara, Ellaria, and the last remaining Sand Snake, Tyene as his gift to Cersei which will totally make her want to marry him so he can be king, I guess, and not just of his raggedy salt islands.

It will never not be distracting how much Euron looks like Pacey though. If Pacey had a run-in with an H&M clearance rack and the entire smoky eye section of Sephora.

Sibling Dramzzz: Lannister Edition

And speaking of Cersei's current romantic status: Jaime is giving her a looooot of side-eye because she's, y'know, terrible. But she is doing a really fun thing this season where she's constantly recapping how much she hates everyone while subconsciously remaining us how much everyone hates her in return. While roaming around her Etsy map of Westeros, Cersei tells Jaime: "Enemies to the east. Enemies to the south: Ellaria Sand and her brood of bitches. Enemies to the west: Olenna, the old cunt, another traitor. Enemies to the North: Ned Stark's bastard has been named King of the North, and that murdering whore Sansa stands beside him. Enemies everywhere, we're surrounded by traitors!"

Girl, anymore zingers and maybe a concluding paragraph, and they'll give you a byline at Vulture. It is my one true hope that Jaime will realize his sister is insane and kill her before she kills him or Tyrion.

Everything Lil' Lyanna Mormont Does

I don't care if it's Disney-Channel-level precocious, I don't care if they're just giving us more of what we want…actually, I do care. Give me more of what I want! And what I want is the Lil'est Lady of Bear Island repeatedly telling a bunch of giant grizzled dudes to STFU. "I don't plan on knitting by the fire while men fight for me," she says when it's proposed that girls should be trained to fight in the war to come. "I might be small and I might be a girl, but I am every bit as much a Northerner as you. And I don't need your permission to defend the North." Yes, my tiny queen! I don't know if they heard you in the back, but at this point in time, just about every major house in the realm is run by a woman And speaking of…

Jon and Dany Said Each Other's Names and Hopefully That Will All Be Fine

That's it, that's all I needed. Now they can either become best friends or fall in incestuous Targaryen love, there is no other option.

Images: HBO; BlondieTVJunkie/tumblr

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

It honestly feels like D&D missed out on one of the more elusive and interesting points of the overall story, which is the ephemeral way the actions of others influence who we are actually seeing through the eyes of the narrative, as well as how a large cast of thinly-connected people can have massive impact that create unforeseen situations later on.

Completely erasing Young Grif makes Varys and Ilirio look very stupid for raising Viserys the way they did and essentially putting all their eggs in one basket, then trading Dany to Drogo for Viserys' benefit, and Drogo kills him, and they're... cool with that? They just decide to see if Jorah actually mercs her, and when he doesn't, they just... support her after she creates her own system of power??? It makes Varys look like a moron and Ilirio look like a disinterested rich guy who just sort of farts around doing whatever his dumb bald friend tells him to do.

Euron slides into the Iron Islands, throws his brother off a dumpy bridge, jokes about his big wiener, and now he's King Boat. The moot basically doesn't happen. No meeting of the bloodline, exchanging shows of power through authority, knowledge, and gained Valerian artifacts. We are shown that Asha is the golden child of the Greyjoy family. Her father loves her strength, sailing prowess, cut throat approach, and has clearly groomed her to succeed him. We are explicitly shown and told that she has a MASSIVE contingent of ironborn followers who trust her and are loyal to her. Enough ironborn to STEAL AN ENTIRE FLEET OF SHIPS AND FULLY CREW THEM ALL, and yet nobody but Theon defends her at the moot? They laugh her out and agree to help Euron kill her, even though she's been the resident HBIC for literal years while Euron was away? "Pay the iron price" nothing, a random cabin boy would have shanked Euron in the kidney for suggesting that Asha wasn't every inch born of salt and blood and ready to conquer anything at the drop of a hat. And that cabin boy would have been clapped on the back and given a biscuit for shutting up that stupid asshole.

Don't even get me STARTED on the can of worms that is what happened to Sansa. I will only touch on the fact that Baelish is made out to be about as crafty and intelligent as a paint huffing koala by assuming the sham marriage to Ramsay would IN ANY WAY benefit him and not lead to Sansa shoving a metaphorical boot so far up his ass he could count the laces with his tongue. His informants never mentioned Ramsay's girl-on-the-down-low? His penchant for torturing and murdering his sexual partners? His hobby of abuse and violence? His literal room for literal horrific literal torture? How Papa Bolton lets it happen? No? Bullshit. Ramsay's reputation preceeds him even if you don't have a spy network. Either Ramsay tortures Sansa horrifically and she survives and now hates Petyr or Ramsay kills her and he loses his gambit for the North. There is no situation in which he gains from this deal. D&D made him a big stupid shithead who is... surprised??? When Sansa has Arya slit his throat??? What??? Show Petyr can't forsee shit. He can't even see why kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch.

People aren't smart in the show. Period. No one is intelligent. All the way down from kings, queens, and highborns to random peasants and street urchins. Everyone is morons.

And for some reason the Night King has an arm superior to any MLB pitcher in history. Sign that icy fuck up for Olympic javelin. He's got it on lock with that cannon attached to his shoulder. Hitting a fast-moving bullseye at over several hundred yards. Is he just hustling wights and white walkers at darts when we aren't looking? Is that why he's the king? Because he could slap-cook a chicken?

Christ do I love the books and try to enjoy the show but D&D make it very very hard.

I think Game of Thrones gets more shit than it deserves (though it deserves some) considering how complicated the source material is and how they actually have to adhere to deadlines unlike certain other people we could mention

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

I would say that it doesn’t get enough shit tbh. The only ones that truly criticize the show are a few book snobs and people who care about good writing rather than spectacle. 

Those people are in the minority. The show is still winning Emmys for writing, even though the writing has been absolute trash since s4. The show is still universally regarded as the best thing since sliced bread. It got a bit of public criticism with s7, but it still won Emmys for writing IIRC.

As for the source material, well … they shouldn’t have decided to adapt it if it was beyond their skill level. The only thing I sort of sympathize with them on is the fact that there are no more books out, so they did kind of “run out of source material,” (despite the fact that they cut/ignored several characters/plotlines, which made them run out of material faster, but whatever).

No offense, but I don’t like that people use time restraints as an excuse, or try to blame the show’s bad writing on GRRM for not publishing the rest of the series. These people are supposed to be professional writers. They signed up to write this show. Other writers with deadlines are able to write well written seasons under deadlines, why not them? And it does suck that they have to come up with their own material, since that technically isn’t what they signed up for, but every show has some sort of setback included behind the scenes. And again, professionals. They’re getting paid millions upon millions of dollars to write this … and this is what they give us. I’ve seen fans come up with better storylines than them. Fans who are not professional writers. Nearly every theory the fans gave us on Arya’s s6 story in Bravvos was better than the nonsense D&D wrote. The fans came up with the “Talisa is a Lannister spy” theory, which, again, was better than the bad fanfic D&D wrote.

And even without TWOW and ADOS, they should still attempt to embody the spirit of the series, but they haven’t. Instead they give us terribly written, lazy, high budget fanfiction where all they care about is spectacle and shock value over good writing and consistent characters. 

Season 7 felt the most like bad fanfiction, but the issues have been there even when the show was still good, i.e. when they did still have source material, because they either cut it in exchange for stupid stuff (like Pod’s magical penis, which has had well over a 3 season arc at this point), changed it and made it bad (like whitewashing Tyrion’s character to the point where he is a boring nonentity, or ruining Robb’s character with that Talisa bullshit and the way it was set up). You can tell they don’t care anymore. If they cared, there’s no way they would have had Arya do that ridiculous Assassin’s Creed escape scene in Bravvos despite her injuries, or make open kinslaying the biggest trend despite the taboo it’s supposed to be (Euron admitting to killing his brother and the Ironborn rewarding him for it by crowning him, the Ironborn helping him try to kill his niece and nephew, Ellaria and the Sand Snakes murdering their entire family … I feel like I’ve forgotten some). Hell, Cersei became queen with no riots from the smallfolk despite the fact that she not only murdered the family they loved, but killed a bunch of them too, and she still has highborn supporters despite the fact that everyone knows she pulled a 9/11 on the world’s equivalent of the Vatican (if Hot Pie knows she did it, then everyone knows). Not to mention the fact that the West is still supporting her even though she’s a kinslayer since she killed Kevan and Lancel, but again open kinslaying is the biggest trend in the show version Westeros). And I’ll be here all day if I rant about what they did to Jaime’s character, or Brienne’s character, or Sansa in s5, or Stannis, or all of the Martells except for Oberyn. They do not care. They stopped caring after they adapted the Red Wedding. They made it clear in interviews that that was what they wanted to get to. After that? Welp. 

Not to mention the grossness of their writing — the sexism despite their obvious pandering, the disgusting way they handled Theon and his PTSD, and really so many other things that would require me to write a thesis. It’s been there since the beginning in hindsight, but it’s gotten worse and more obvious since s4. 

Honestly there isn’t anything I could say here that @gotgifsandmusings @turtle-paced @thefandomentals hasn’t said. Check out their anti-got/critiques, because I agree with pretty much everything they’ve written. But basically? The show used to be about good storytelling and compelling characters. It used to have logic and realism, despite its fantasy setting. Now all the show has to offer is (mostly) good acting, amazing visuals and cool battle scenes. That’s about it. And that seems to be enough for some people. To each their own. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯