#dead ladies club

[gothgleek]

Johanna and Joanna

[bardsansa]

queen rhaella targaryen, shortly before the tourney at harrenhall, 281 AC

visenya and rhaenys, alyssa velaryon, the six wives of maegor, alysanne, aemma arryn, alicent hightower and rhaenyra i, helaena, jaehaera, daenaera velaryon, daena the defiant, naerys, myriah nymeros martell, aelinor penrose, betha blackwood, shaera

[atopvisenyashill]

AU where instead of having a dead ladies club we have a dead dudes club: Aerys dies in Summerhal and Rhaella eventually becomes Queen regent for her son. Joanna, Minisa and Lyarra live while their husbands Tywin, Hoster, and Rickard don't. And Cassana survives the shipwreck along with patchface.

me seeing this ask:

anyways, let's first establish how each man dies.

Aerys - like you said, just killing him at Summerhall is easiest.

Tywin - if we kill him during the Reyne/Tarbeck revolt, it butterflies away all the Lannister kids so we'll have it be that something goes horrifically bad during the Defiance of Duskendale and he dies there.

Steffon - Cassana washes up on shore with Patchface in 278.

Hoster - this one's a bit tricky because in order to die before Robert's Rebellion kicks off, something Weird and Tragic has to happen to him during a time period that is more or less chill in the riverlands. He does fight in the War of the Ninepenny Kings but that happens in 260 and Edmure likely isn't born until 267. We could say he dies in the Greyjoy Rebellions, but that's after Robert's Rebellion by a few years. We'll just invent a sickness or accident that kills him, instead of Minisa dying in childbirth lol. if it makes the plot more interesting for him to die during the Greyjoy Rebellions though, tbh, that's probably also fine, but I do think having only one (1) parent at Riverrun is important to how the kids develop.

Rickard - this one is similarly difficult. we could just have him die when he does die, and just say that Lyarra didn't die.

anyways, let's dig into what this changes right off the bat, sort of set the scene here-

Rhaella is like 13-14 when Summerhall happens, and then like 15-16 I think when Jaehaerys II dies, so not only is she a very young Queen, she's likely to remarry. Since she's not even at the age of majority yet (jfc), I think if we assume she's regent, it means she allied with Aerys' friends to oust Jaehaerys II's small council - so Tywin is for sure still Hand, and ruling the entire realm in all but name. I do imagine that not only is Steffon very close at court as well, but Cassana becomes close to Rhaella.

Rhaegar won't be allowed to wait until he's like 21 to marry, they will be looking at marriages when he's like 12-13 and likely intend for him to get married right away at like 15-16 and consummate, because he's the only male heir.

Edmure becomes Lord of Riverrun very young, Minisa as his regent. I think given that Minisa will be regent, Catelyn still has a lot of parentification stuff happening here, but I do think it's more likely she notices the crushes going on between Lysa, Cat, and Petyr.

Robert still becomes Lord of Storm's End - he's 15 when Steffon dies, which is plenty old to take up his seat. However, with his mother still around, Stannis and Renly have a parental influence at least.

alright let's go event by event here:

262 AC: Jaehaerys II dies and little three year old Rhaegar Targaryen is crowned King. Though there is an initial push by Edgar Sloane and Jaehaerys' small council to establish one of their own as Regent and Hand of the King, Queen Rhaella is successful in ousting her father's men in favor of her own - mostly the husbands, brothers, or cousins of her ladies. This includes, of course, the impressive and young Tywin Lannister as Hand, probably Steffon Baratheon, and honestly, it's quite possible here that Lewyn or Loreza's husband is named to the small council as well, given the fact that we know one of Rhaella's ladies was Loreza. Despite being so young, Rhaella is named Regent.

272 AC: A decade with the trio of young Rhaegar, Queen Regent Rhaella, and Hand of the King Tywin has allowed the realm to prosper. Without Aerys pawing at her ladies, Rhaella holds onto several close allies, and neither Tywin nor Joanna spend their days being humiliated at court to curry favor with the king. Rhaella is likely more level headed than Aerys, and isn't overpromising on things and then abandoning her projects soon after. There's likely been a push for her to remarry, if only so Rhaegar's children may have a Valyrian option to marry somewhere down the line? But on the other hand...it might be possible there's some problems at court re: everyone gossiping that if Tywin is the real King, and Rhaella is Queen, are they not...you know....that gets back to Joanna. Not only that, but I can bet there's tensions between Loreza's Dornish faction and Tywin, probably with Steffon in the middle because Tywin is clearly trying to get Rhaegar/Cersei hitched from an early age, Loreza is clearly trying to get Elia/Rhaegar hitched from an early age, and Steffon and Cassana are desperately fucking and having kids in the hopes of having a girl for Rhaegar to marry. We know there was a visit by Rickard during the first ten years, so it's very possible that Lyarra develops a friendship with Rhaella, and that instead of that dumb "i'm going to build another Wall" plan, Rhaella starts encouraging more people to be sent to the Wall.

275 AC: Rhaegar comes of age and takes his position as King without a regent. While I don't doubt he would keep Tywin on, I do think there's going to be tension here - we see this with both Jaehaerys and Aegon III, and even Joffrey really, that the move from child to adult can be a bit rough on the Hand/Regent/King relationship. I think Rhaegar, melancholy as he is, would want to be known as a good king, a kind king, and probably doesn't appreciate Tywin's cruelty. I think it makes a lot of sense that he'd purposefully scorn Tywin specifically for this reason - the same as Alysanne purposefully spurning Rogar's match or the Dragon Twins + Aegon III purposefully spurning the lords for Daenaera. It's about making a statement, it's about power, it's about standing out from the people who are trying to rule through you. I almost think it's likely Rhaegar and Elia still marry here, but it's possible Rhaegar decides to just straight up marry someone who isn't connected at court at all - not a Martell, not a Lannister, but maybe a Hightower or Tyrell. Especially, imo, because of Rhaegar's prophecy obsession - what if he visits Jenny's woods witch on his own? Or what if he visits Oldtown and sees Mad Maid Malora is heavy with magic? Maybe, knowing how often he stays at Summerhall to be an emo fuck, he marries Ashara?

277 AC: The Defiance of Duskendale. I don't know if an 18 year old would be this stupid, it does seem likely that he would just fall into the same trap Aerys did - ie "I want to prove I'm better than my Hand and I'll deal with the issue myself" - but I think Rhaella would be like "absolutely fucking not, you're the fucking KING, and you have no heir/only a baby for an heir, if you don't want Tywin to do it, send someone else then." I think it would be really fun if Rhaella got caught in this trap, Tywin completely botches getting her out and gets himself killed, and Rhaegar just goes "oh fuck that noise" and burns Duskendale to the ground his damn self. It could be an interesting change here that Rhaegar's madness + obsession with the prophecy gets kicked off not by his father's own madness but by the near loss of his mother. Even if Rhaella is mostly fine (she went years being tortured by Aerys, I think she's made of sterner stuff! I can see her being real shaken up for awhile before chilling out), the idea that he could really be The Last Dragon is terrifying. Suddenly, he needs to set this prophecy in motion, he needs to have more dragons, it can't just be himself and his mother.

279 AC: Another blow, just after losing Tywin and nearly losing {his mom? joncon? does he care that much about joncon lmao}, Steffon dies in a storm coming back from the Free Cities. Cassana lives but is quite shaken up by the entire event and retires from court to stay at home with her boys. Another blow happens later in the year, when Loreza dies, and Doran inherits Sunspear.

281 AC: So....now we're at the Tourney of Harrenhal, where shit gets real. Who Rhaegar marries will decide who is on his side here and who has started getting ready for Mad King 2.0 because I do imagine that in the four years since the Duskendale fuck up, a lot of the lords have started whispering. If he marries Elia or Ashara, he still has Dorne on lock. If he marries Malora, that might mean Doran is involved in the Southron Ambitions plot (although then again, he might not be, it's not like anyone thought to involve Doran in the wo5k until way too fucking late anyway). If he risks marrying someone like, completely outside of Westeros, I think something kinda crazy starts cooking at home with every single region having no reason to be loyal to him. Not to mention, if Lyarra is friendly with Rhaella, does he already know Lyanna? Since Hoster and Tywin are both dead here, it probably means Rickard had to reach out to Minisa and and Joanna and I'm really interested in how this goes, politics wise. Is it just Rickard and Minisa (and Jon Arryn) doing Southron Ambitions? Is Cassana getting involved after the loss of Steffon? And what does Rhaegar's small council look like now? Is it packed with Dornishmen and Crownlanders? With Reachers? Does he have some sort of woods witch as his Hand?

SO WHEN RHAEGAR TAKES LYANNA. For one thing, when Brandon gets to KL and starts shouting "COME OUT AND DIE" Rhaella isn't going to respond by burning everyone. I can see her maybe taking them captive because what they're accusing Rhaegar of, when he's the King, is pretty fucking severe but she's not just slaughtering them. She's sending the Kingsguard to go look for him while she holds the Northern faction at KL, and while I do think they'll go and get him, I think Rhaegar is going to say something like "it's fine, she's fine, leave us alone" and the North is gonna get real shitty about this. Brandon might attempt to leave. Lyarra might attempt to find Lyanna herself with a host of Northerners, or maybe with a host of stormlanders, riverlanders, or westermen. The crown has to respond to that, so there's likely to be some skirmishes here. Either Rhaegar is found with Lyanna at the Tower of Joy or Rhaegar finally appears and is like "why is everyone yelling" while everyone demands to know where Lyanna is. If he's cagey, the North and their allies are going to start attacking more boldly. If he says "yeah she's my mistress now, back off, I'm the king" I think everyone is too amped up to give a shit and the North refuses to stand down, which leads to whoever is leading them - Lyarra, maybe Ned - being labelled a traitor to the crown. This is going to domino effect quickly. If he says "yeah she's my wife now, back off, I'm king" he is losing everyone fast as fuck.

Anyways, I kept this kind of general in case you just wanted some like, general outline of what could happen but if you want what EYE think is most interesting, it's a) Rhaella at Duskendale b) Minisa being the one to mastermind Southron Ambitions, although Cassana could be fun as well c) LYARRA STARK REBEL WAR HERO. I think it's likely Rhaegar would try to "she's my mistress/wife" his way out of this but its not fucking happening. all those theories about how "lyanna and rhaegar got valyrian married jon is legitimate" no he's fucking not because no one is going to give a single solitary shit. Bigamy is not allowed in Westeros anymore or Aegon IV would have tried it. if he legitimizes his own kid, it's sort of like, okay great, but he was born a bastard, now Rhaegar is legitimizing his kid just like aegon iv, and everyone is going to see this as a threat. they're going to say he's insane. they're still going to oust him. the question here is - can rhaella, through her friendships with the wives and now leaders of southron ambitions, keep hold long enough so that even if Rhaegar dies, she can get his kid on the throne? Can she make peace with Robert? Or does she have to go on the run, not with her own kids, but with Rhaegar's children?

[ludcake]

of all of its great innovations for asoiaf lore, the one great expansion to the mythos of the series that we must accredit to it is its vast expansion of the dead ladies club. before, we only had but a few women with barely a name and maybe a single phrase to make up a whole personality for; now we've dozens of women whose character we've no idea what gurm intended, beyond the inherent attractiveness of putting Guys Into Situations and maybe some implied drama. from a handful, we've an army. in this essay, i will posit that the combined might of the dead ladies club could murder the entire patriarchy-

[horizon-verizon]

Imagine if this self inserting fandom cared as much about the actual and fully fleshed out POV characters OF THE MAIN SERIES as it does about long dead pre ASOIAF characters, be they F&B Targs or randoms from the martyred Dead Ladies Club.

🙃Guilty? I talk a lot about Rhaenyra and F&B character than I do ASoIaF main series characters.

I suppose it's partly due to HotD reviving reviews of F&B, but this fandom also already has been making dead women and non-reactive or narratively passive women the unsung heroes of this story. To some extent, you can include Lyanna, but Lyanna has a lot more symbolism backing up her relationship to Rhaegar and actions pre-Rebellion. The other part is that people feel either more "decided" abt what ASoIaF is about bc of GoT OR they are still too angry to really get into ASoIaF and either fight for/against Daenerys bc it inevitably gets to that (as it should). Or some people have yet to really reread/read for the first time the main ASoIaF books to not feel equipped to talk about them.

Or they are dumb.

[finitefall]

OKay I am unfamiliar with that fan activity for the women listed in the dead ladies club, except Lyanna and Elia, who are important to the story so it makes sense they have fans. Let's assume that there are many fans that make gross sexual art of Ashara Dayne or Tysha or Catelyn's mother, could there be another way to call them out that doesn't use the term Dead Ladies Club and the associated feminist critique of ASOIAF in the negative?

Hi nonnie. So the term Dead Ladies Club was indeed first used by someone who pointed out the misogyny because even though there are also many unknown dead male characters, those female characters only being remembered as wives and mothers, dying in childbirth or raped and then murdered is something "problematic" (I hate that word now) for many, which I understand. They aren't meant to be more than very minor characters and footnotes in ASOIAF History, but yes, I'd like to know more about those female characters than this. Not just Lyanna Stark and Elia Martell, either.

Rhaella Targaryen, for example, seems important to me. She's Daenerys' mother, she was the last Targaryen Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, but besides being abused and raped by Aerys II, having suffered many miscarriages and dying in childbirth, we know nothing about her. Dany isn't just one of the main characters in the novels, she's also one of the key five. It would be interesting (to me) to know more about her mother and not just her brother Rhaegar and their father Aerys II, since Dany is so important to the story.

But I'm not a fan of Rhaella. So no, I don't understand why so many people stan Lyanna or Elia, since you can't love a character you know almost nothing about. You can want to know more about them because of their relevance when it comes to other characters still alive in the novels, but what do they love about Elia, for example? That she was kind? That she was clever? That she was Rhaegar's wife? That she had two children two him? That she was murdered after being raped? We don't know those female characters, so it's weird that they have so many fans.

I haven't heard anything about gross sexual art, thank God, and I hope it will stay that way. But to come back to your question, I don't see a reason to come up with another term because almost everyone in the fandom knows to whom we're referring to when we say Dead Ladies Club, and also because I don't believe Elia stans, for example, are an example when it comes to the critique of misogyny. A lot of them absolutely love to slut-shame Lyanna and hope Dany will die because it would (according to them) avenge her death caused by Rhaegar.

So personally, I'll keep using the same term both to say it wouldn't have been a bad idea at all to add more informations about those female characters and as a critique against the hardcore fans of the Dead Ladies Club.

[liesmyth]

A World of Ice and Fire or “was this fucking necessary, George?”

[pomeraniandancer]

There's a part of me that wonders if the Dead Ladies Club of ASOIAF might (intentionally or unintentionally) also work as a deconstruction of the Dead Ladies Club either IRL, or in fiction.

The average and median life span of women historically, and in many parts of the world today, is pretty brutal. The most dangerous period is of course the child birthing years, which in IRL is honestly an even more brutal and dangerous thing than is portrayed in ASOIAF. If you survive that period (a massive "if"), then chances are you'll live a reasonably long life, but that was assuming you survived both childhood (a remarkable feat in its own right) *and* childbirth.

If you managed to survive both of those things, then yeah, chances are you were going to live a decently long life because you've already proven that you're a fucking indestructible bitch. No wonder Olenna Tyrell is so kickass.

It just makes me ponder the possibility that the Dead Ladies Club is a reflection, and potentially a literary deconstruction of the risks and dangers posed to women's lives regardless of their class or station, and by extension a reflection of their absence from historical records.

I realize this runs the risk of giving GRRM more credit than he deserves, but I'm also pondering over the potential depths to be plumbed in exploring this subject in a literary way more broadly, not just in terms of how GRRM might intentionally or unintentionally be doing so.

which member of the dead ladies club would you have loved to have seen throughout the asoiaf series?

I don't know and have no means to know. Which is the criticism. These characters have no role in the story but to be dead. We don't know who they were or what they wanted. There's almost no trace of them in the narrative to tell us who they were and who they could have been. There's little for me to be interested in, no handle for me to get on their characters.

And they are disproportionately female.

[theladwhoisweird]

Do you think you're still my mother in another universe?

...hope not.

[tyrramint]

I’m sorry, what shows over the past two years have actually been renewed? I legitimately don’t care any more if the show is “good” or if it’s “bad” because they’re all cancelled. I can go on and on with a list just off the top of my head with shows that have been cancelled recently, and maybe one? two? maybe? that have been renewed? Like. what is the point. I’m scared to start any new show because in all likelihood it’s going to be cancelled. And all the more power to campaigns to save shows; I have so much respect for the perseverance and dedication that takes, and I’m not trying to bring them down in the slightest, but I’m more saying to the point of that there shouldn’t. have to be. a new campaign to save x show every two weeks BECAUSE SHOWS SHOULD BE ABLE TO BE RENEWED. Fans should be able to have some *semblance* of hope that their show will be renewed, and the fact that we’re not even able to have that is ridiculous and speaks volumes about the landscape of show production right now. Every time I see that a new show was cancelled, it doesn’t even matter if I was a fan of it or not, I just still hurt for that fandom. It’s so draining, even if it’s not firsthand. There’s not even really a point to this post, I’m just tired of it. I’m so sorry for all of the shows you love that have been cancelled.

[jaehaeryshater]

I am this girl’s only fan ever btw. Gerold if you did it, you suck

[eye-candy-film-enjoyer]

[angelsimscreations]

Sims 4 movie posters!!!

in build buy under posters in decorations use ] to make bigger and [ to make smaller

Girl interrupted, Lady bird, Catch me if you can, Dead poets society, Dinner in America, Baby driver, Almost famous, Jarhead, Lilja 4ever x2,Drive x2,Palo alto x2,Fight club x2,Donnie Darko x2,Midsommar x2,Before I disappear x2

[la-pheacienne]

Can somebody explain to me how the so-called """"""feminists"""""""" of the fandom have made it their life's purpose to continuously hate on the TWO FEMALE KEY PLAYERS of A song of ice and fire, and rebrand that as feminism?

Like, we're talking about the two main female heroines of the story, a story that became popular precisely for having these two female characters, the exiled teen sex slave and the orphan little girl that suffocates from society's expectations. If you call yourself a """"""feminist""""""" and a member of asoiaf fandom and you hate/don't care for these characters, guess what you're certainly not.

How did we come to this? What happened to this fandom? It feels like a nuclear catastrophe going through the tags. All I see is an army of people who joined the fandom because the TV show got really popular, then started repeating the same slogans again and again without giving one fuck about the actual story being told. The five players, the five outcasts, the dwarf, the bastard, the cripple, the exiled sex slave and the non-conforming lady, these are the heroes of the story. These characters. This is why the story became popular. I don't understand how this horrible mutation happened in this fandom, I will never get over this.

[horizon-verizon]

I don’t know anything about Helaena so I can’t even hate her because she’s basically a name on paper. She’s barely a character and just becomes a grief filled mother before dying. Even in HOTD, we barely get anything about her. She likes bugs and has strange dreams, okay. She’s abused by her mother and her brother, and we don’t know if she if she had any good qualities of a queen. She just dies. That’s it.

I think people like the headcanons they have in their head about her. Just like Jaehaera, she has ZERO characterization so it’s easy to make her seem like this “totally innocent, too good for this sinful world.” It’s like with Daphne Greengrass or Blaise Zabini in Harry Potter. We basically just get their names, yet there’s whole subfandoms of these characters with universally agreed on traits and whatnot. I feel the same about Helaena and her children. They were written to die, just like their dragons and bloodline. I don’t care and tbh I barely care about not caring (LOL) because that’s how irrelevant they are.

Fair. I don't really cry over them, but that's more due to the writing for them.

[finitefall]

speak of self insert i don't really get the new wave of heleana stans who claim she is a better queen than rhaenyra

In the book she only had 1 fun line (when she's asked where Aegon was) and that's the only sentence we can daydream about her personality. Afterwards b&c happens - which is tragic because ofc her and the kids were innocent but still caught in the circumstances.

In the show she's still hardly given any personality except that she likes bugs and she can apparently tell prophecies (which the latter ignores so much world building context because you're telling me the Targaryen family would have the first dreamer after Daenys the Dreamer and they would just.... ignore it? But whatever let's ignore the bad writing), she still doesn't have any personality and we don't see her interacting with any other lady in waiting (which is something show alicent and show Rhaenyra also suffer from)

I just don't get the almost obsessive support a character with hardly any traits gets just so to dismiss another female character which I assume they hate

I've answered about Helaena here: her stans love her because she's done nothing wrong, because they can self-insert as with most female characters we know almost nothing about, and because they included neurodivergent representation.

"I just don't get the almost obsessive support a character with hardly any traits gets just so to dismiss another female character which I assume they hate"

Dead Ladies Club stans need those characters for self-insert and yes, to hate on another female character whose flaws are known.