#fire threat

[agentrouka-blog]

I wonder, if the solution to the fire threat lies in the death of Dany's dragons as the first step towards the magic slowly but surely dying out, where do you think it lies with the ice threat? Do the Starks and the Others make another pact and rebuild the Wall or do the Others need to be annihilated in order to destroy the danger of eternal winter?

My thoughts in this direction are by no means final or especially sophisticated. I'm mostly trying to analyse what all these threats seem to have in common and why - objectively - they are worth condemning, and I always arrive at blood magic and abuse of power over others.

The dragons? Born from murder and blood magic. The Others? Kill and then control corpses through what is likely blood magic. Warging? Mind rape, potentially created through blood magic. Whatever Euron has going on? The Faceless Men? Melisandre? Blood magic. Human sacrifice. Murder. For power.

It's no different from the petty cruelties of the more worldly villains who sacrifice human beings for their own advantage to find an outlet for their emotional scars.

So I think that ice and fire are two sides of the same blood magic coin, in that regard. Grief and wrath translate to the desire for power, just on a more apocalyptic level.

The solution is neither a status quo like the Wall and a world of illogical, unnaturally distorted seasons. Nor a cataclysmic devastation like the Doom of Valyria. The Others are obviously back and were never truly defeated, and the Doom didn't end inhumane slavery nor all dragonlords, it merely led to scattered successors all over.

The solution is going to have to be stepping away from the seductive, corrupting power of magic. Because magic is always presented as a trade and the trade is usually the sacrifice of a third party. The link between the human world and the supernatural world needs to be severed.

So I think that both Bran and Dany especially will be foils in this, presented with the opportunity to refuse that power they have grown accustomed to abusing, and Dany will fail to refuse it and either go down in flames or be stopped in a very worldly, mortal way, while Bran will use his power to work toward ending access to magic entirely, leaving himself once again a helpless, disabled boy who must face the reality of his grief and loss with bare hands.

The dragons are likely to die or at least become inaccessible through magic, the direwolf warg bonds, the greenseeing, all will be sacrificed - not necessarily in the form of a new pact but in the reversal or reparation for an ancient crime that created the Others in the first place. Be that a crime of the original Starks or the Children of the Forest or both. This threat will end through revealing a truth and following through on a logical if uncomfortable consequence.

I think.

[demaparbat-hp]

On your most recent From the Couch post... is that a dragon tattoo I see poking out of Zuko's collar? ...................may we see more of it?

You may see all of it.

[hehearse]

[daenerys-targaryns]

hot take maybe but the only reason most show runners/producers/writers/etc. age up the (female) characters from book to show adaptation is to overtly sexualize them and not face mass amounts of scrutiny for it.

put 13 year old daenerys next to 30 year old drogo and the audience understands that daenerys is a victim to him and not an equal. put 22 year old emilia clarke as daenerys next to 32 year old jason mamoa as drogo and they’re seen as a budding romance with a tragic ending (by the general audience) due to their on screen chemistry.

flash forward to today, and now we’re dealing with 21 year old milly alcock playing rhaenyra from 14-19 and how her relationship with (28 year old fabien) a mid twenties criston is seen as -morally acceptable- and not a result of a degenerate pedophile taking advantage of and grooming his charge. “ser criston protects the princess from her enemies, but who protects the princess from ser criston?” rhaenyra was 14 when rumors started speculating that she slept with an almost 30 year old criston. a criston who had know her since she was 8 and had been her sworn shield since she was 9. obviously seeing a teenager in the early stages of puberty next to a fully grown man would emphasize rhaenyra being THE victim, as opposed to the show having an 18-19 year old explore her sexuality and seek out ‘consensual’ sex with her peer bodyguard. the discourse has even reached the point where certain stans try to paint the much younger woman as the perpetrator and aggressor of this event, who forced the unassuming man into having sex with her.

i’ll even take this a step farther, and bring up how if they had shown a 19 year old alicent abusing a 10 year old rhaenyra it would be identified and mutually agreed upon as a reprehensible act on alicent’s part. instead they’re of similar age, so people can attempt to paint the picture as two women of equal standing hating each other, and not a much older woman bullying a motherless child. once again however, some stans even go so far as to try and paint alicent as a victim of rhaenyra, and not the other way around. further cementing this is how both versions of alicent are younger than both versions of rhaenyra, AND how criston is still played by an actor who is younger than older!rhaenyra despite his character being the same age as daemon in canon.

they know exactly what they’re doing too, considering they aged alicent down to give her that innate compassion one typically feels when seeing children being abused on tv (something that can no longer be applied to rhaenyra). despite that never being her story; *she* was the abuser, and rhaenyra was her victim. criston’s victim. it’s a nasty cop out, and i wish more people would call out how sickening it is to flip the switch and attempt to make abusive individuals more sympathetic than the *actual* victims of said abusers.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 252

“Sir, we’ve… There’s been an encounter with a Reaper class entity.” 

There were several classifications for ecto-entities. Several ways the Ghost Investigation Ward classified each. Several common ones that they could easily destroy, easily study. Others however… others were dangerous. Incredibly dangerous. 

There’d only been two other Reaper-class entities confirmed before- both contained but barely. RP-1, a large knight-like entity seemingly made from shadows, and RP-2, a child-like creature that could near perfectly mimic a human. 

And now, there was a third. A third entity that could- and judging from the reports coming in had- killed. Had done so several times even. Which meant it needed to be contained yesterday. 

“Send out the teams- I want this thing in Site X Now!” 

[paeonie-s]

my current read on yoshidas ch is that hes the equivalent of a high schooler being made manager of a mcdonald’s bc all of his adult coworkers quit which leads him to believe that the fate of the world now depends on his ability to keep the drive thru times below 90 seconds

[asphodelis]

all hail!!

[prolibytherium]

Would kill to read animal POV fiction that has the animal POV’s interaction with humans be like, semi realistic to the level of caution most predators take with large prey and/or competitors (including humans).

Like instead of the usual - “the human is such a weak, pathetic creature... so slow, no claws, blunt teeth… completely helpless without its 'Fire Sticks'. how is it the master of the earth?” type crap it’s like, the bear protagonist or whatever approaches some dude who spreads their arms and yells and the bear is like “FUUUUUUUUCK THAT THING JUST GOT HUGE. IT'S LARGE AND MAKING NOISES. HOLY FUCK.”

[marysblo0d]

How some of you sound

[babylonfelldown]

Everytime I see someone saying Cat was a bad mom, or some farytale like evil stepmom to Jon I wanna pull my eyes out

My girl was a SAINT, no woman would have handled the Jon situation as well as her

Can u look me in the eyes and seriously say that any highborn Lady from one of the great houses would have endured her husband bringing a bastard to their home and raising his as equal to their legitimate children? If anyone thinks that way they don't understend anything about asoiaf

[thesulkycroissant]

I love to give Bruce crap as much as the next person, but at least he's trying. Also Dickie's face in that last panel 🥹

[mysterybyte]

Triple Threat

Heather Carolin: a mane of braided fire, eyes blue as the clear California sky, beautiful freckles all over, and two strawberry gumdrops, each perched on its own beautiful pedestal.

Heather Carolin / www.heathercarolin.com (defunct)

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

Transcript:

I'm gonna pump so much of my light into your asshole, it'll feel like I flashbanged your intestines.

Audio Source

[flying-ham]

It’s interesting that mirri maz duur (whether on purpose or inadvertently) kills rhaego to prevent future suffering he and his khalasar might commit, but ultimately causes the birth of a much more destructive entity. She tells dany that, “The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar will trample no nations into dust,” after the stillbirth, believing that rhaego would become a Genghis Khan esque figure in essos. However, it is rhaego’s sacrifice that quickens dany’s eggs, allowing drogon, viserion, and rhaegal to be born. In the end, mirri gives dany far more power than she ever would have had under drogo and rhaego, and far more destructive capabilities.

[serpentface]

Interview Question for Etsushir:

What was the vibe like as a foot soldier during the suppression of the North Finn Rebellion? Did it feel doomed from the start or did it only fall apart once the Odomache was assaulted and killed?

[agentrouka-blog]

I think the reason why I don't think GRRM needs to go there is specifically because the central conflict is not between these two extremes.

The ice zombies can be destroyed by fire and are magically allergic to obsidian, and the dragons dislike the cold and are repelled by the Wall's inherent magic. But ultimately, both Others and dragons are not each other's enemy but just two expressions of the same thing: blood magic. And we have other examples of this kind of magic, such as Mirri's deathly spell, the water magic of the Rhoynar, whatever it is Euron has going on... all deeply destructive.

All forms of blood magic, and these two extremes of fire and ice in particular, are primarily the enemy of living human beings and the natural world. And it's the choices of human beings to reject or end this kind magic (and the abuse of power it enables) more than anything that will enable them to defeat it.

GRRM is more likely to confuse this issue if he pits them against each other directly. He'll have to go out of his way to explain why it's not working as expected. If he keeps them seperate entirely, he can focus on establishing them as parallel and equal threats without the risk of elevating one over the other as a necessary weapon.

Dany & Co going to North in later bookks is still unlikely. Especially the winters will be harsher than previous ones. Plus the problem of food and other resources will be there.

GRRM: Jon, quick, say something that hints how dragons could help in the fight!

Jon: "Boy, it sure would be fun to have dragons around here. Or three. To warm things up. Sammy mentions dragonsteel." Like that?

GRRM: Perfect. Incidentally, while we're on the subject..!!! Did you know Alysanne's dragon HATED the Wall and refused to cross it? Wow, look at all those horses just dying in the winter storms. Oof. Food sure is a massive issue in the North, how will they feed all the people? Alysanne's intervention at the Wall actually managed to weaken and depopulate the area in the long term, isn't that hilarious? Stannis fantasizes about having a dragon too, btw.

Jon: I know. Mel goes on about it. I do not condone human sacrifice for such purposes, actually. I sent a whole baby away from his mother, did I mention?

Tycho Nestoris: I feel compelled to remind everyone that dragons represent oppression. It's symbolism. Check Arya's Braavosi chapters for more.

GRRM: Thanks, everyone! Okay, Jon, now make another dragon reference!

Jon: Mmm'kay. Um. "Ooh, I used to want to be The Young Dragon and be a conqueror!" Can I get back to counting turnips now, I have things to do.

GRRM: Go right along, lad.