#got vs asoiaf discourse

[centrally-unplanned]

My memories of Feast for Crows and GoT S5 are pretty hazy can you give a rundown on what was skipped? Certainly Brienne's arc was very different, right?

Its been a while for me too alas, I remember writing it down and discussing it back when it was airing. Lets run through a Feast For Crows plotlines and see how we do.

Kings Landing: Strongly changed in Seasons 5-6; the core story, of "Cersei mismanages her rule" is technically there, but Jaime's character is totally different (he splits from her due to moral differences halfway through Book 4, meanwhile in the show they are fucking in the Kingsguard room in Season 6), Margaery's role is totally different (Cersei is primarily delusional about her in the books, while in the show she is absolutely trying to fuck over Cersei, Cersei Is Right) and the role of the church is massively expanded in the show, while its just one of many things she does in the books that happens to blow up in her face.

And I don't think beat-for-beat is as important as themes & character; in the book the 'point' is that Cersei is overreaching her abilities and a bit of a lunatic. In the show she is a Boss Bitch, right about most things, because Lena Heady is amazing so they wanted to make her a sympathetic villain protagonist.

I give it a "Barely Adapted"

Riverlands: Hahahahaha no, Catelyn's resurrection cut, Jaime's role cut, Brienne & Sandor twisted into each other, nothing is there. There is some thematic consistency but its way too different, and there is also thematic contradiction around say Sandor.

"Not Adapted At All"

The Vale: I don't precisely remember when the Vale split happens, but if I recall correctly once the Book 3 Vale arc ends in Season 4 w/ Lysa's death, Sansa in S5 is immediately shipped off to Rapeville in Winterfell, so. Yeah.

"Not Adapted At All"

Iron Islands: Its weirdly pushed way into Season 6, and then its all totally changed - no Aeron Greyjoy, No Victarian Greyjoy, Euron's motives are completely different and he does none of the things he does in the book once he wins. A "kingsmoot" happens and Yara/Asha is there, are the only similarities.

I'm not giving it to them, "Not Adapted At All"

Dorne: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

"Not Adapted At All"

Braavos: This is adapted faithfully enough. Differently for sure, I don't think as well, they add in that theatre lady who befriends Arya for example, and the Child Soldier angle just isn't built up - but its an adaptation (and Maise Williams is just way too old, can't blame em for that), overall it counts. D&D always said Arya was their favourite character, which boy howdy shows in the final season, but it works out-ish here.

"Adapted"

Total: So yeah, for Feast For Crows out of 7 arcs they adapted 1.5 I'd say. Most events are different, most characters are changed, some are inverted (Jaime, poor Jaime), key characters are cut, and a few themes are preserved but others are directly contradicted. I don't personally see any world where you can say Feast For Crows was adapted.

[theweirwoodfiles]

Not to sound overdramatic but stan culture has irreparably damaged the ASOIAF fandom and created very black and white thinking re: characters and kind of, like, a tribalistic atmosphere - for instance, if you love the Starks you can't also love the Targaryens. GoT also helped the fandom decay because it almost completely removed the fantasy elements from a fantasy series. So now you have a fandom that honestly thinks the War for the Dawn is no biggie and that Targs are the REAL threat.

Absolutely. This sort of mentality was at its peak during S7&8 of GOT when you had Sansa stans vs Daenerys stans because for some reason the fandom decided you cant enjoy both. One has to be “an ender” and the other “a flop”. They would put all their effort into sympathizing with the trauma of one, and then use the others trauma as a joke to show how they got “ate up”. So really their sympathy and understanding of a character only extends to their favs.

And we’re seeing it again with this team green vs team black fan war and it’s even worse because the show actively markets it. The fandoms of each team have this “us vs them” mentality again, and because of it they don’t engage with the story critically at all. They only want their team to “win”, whether that be having the best moments, the best characters, the best writing, they take each and any little moment they can possibly cling to to spin as some sort of win for them and loss for the other side. 

What’s funny is that even in the TG vs TB discourse you can still see traces of the anti-targ/Dany phenomenon, despite the fact that both sides are Targaryens. Many Sansa stans have become Aegonwives (ironic) and Alicent stans and hate Rhaenyra and Daemon for having qualities that members of team green also share. They don’t care about the hypocrisy though, they just see team black as the closest thing to Dany, that’s the source of their hatred.

(And mind you, Aegon and Aemond embody all things they claim to hate about Targaryens).

[jackoshadows]

Why do you think there is so much animosity between Sansa fans and Dany fans? I can understand how conflict comes up between Sansa fans and Arya fans given the conflict between the characters but I can’t figure out what the issue is with Dany fans vs Sansa fans. It can’t JUST be because of shipping, right? I’m a big fan of Dany, Arya, and Jon, but I still do like (canon) Sansa as a character and honestly see a lot of similarities between her and Dany. Their stories have definite parallels and anti parallels and I don’t really know why I don’t see anyone else talk about it. Every time I try to talk to a Sansa blog or a fellow Dany blog about it, I never hear back. What gives??

I don't like the both siding in this ask. Sansa fans keep spewing hateful nonsense, farcical theories and made up headcanons in the form of 'intellectual' discourse in the Dany/Arya/Jon tags and then when book fans of those characters respond, the so called 'neutral' bnfs pretend both sides are to blame.

All this explained very clearly here.

And while I personally feel that Dany and Sansa have very little in common as characters, there's a lot of fandom metas/essays/gifsets and fanarts paralleling these two as fandom faves. You should be able to find them on many of the character blogs if you are interested in that sort of thing.

IMO, Daenerys is clearly written as a tier I main character. She drives her story more than any other character in the series as the sole representative of her house and considering how isolated she is from every other POV character. The story in her POV is about her.

If we are looking at parallels, then it's Daenerys and Arya who have a lot of commonality in their way of thinking, their concern for the little guy, in their ideas of justice and dispensing that justice, right and wrong, their toughing it out on their way to the top, their proactive nature in getting things done, to be in charge, their love of nature etc.

With respect to the increase in toxicity from the Sansa fandom post show, then yes, that's because of shipping and Jonsa. A lot of the hate that the character of Daenerys gets is from Sansa fans - especially on Tumblr - because of her foreshadowed future relationship with Jon Snow and they want fanon, self-insert Sansa to have Dany's plot importance and story in the books. It's different on asoiaf sites like Reddit and Westeros.org - the majority of Dany hate on there is from Stannis/Jon Snow fans who are not big fans of a female character being the prophesied chosen one/top dog of the series.

And I point to shipping being the big reason because of my personal fandom experience on this site. This is me going down memory lane but I remember around 2015/16, I wrote these angry, frustrated posts calling out the TV show for taking Jon's book plot and writing that for show Sansa and Sansa's actions in the Battle of the Bastards in season 6. At that time a lot of Dany fans were also big Sansa fans and attacked me for being a 'misogynistic dudebro'. I am not naming names - shit's in the past - but I used to get blocked and get hateful inbox messages for criticizing show Sansa's actions.

During season 6 there were so many posts about Jon Snow being an useless idiot who deserved to die, Sansa was right to not tell him because he's a moron, Sansa's the politician/general who knows best, she deserved to be queen, Jon's the worst for stealing Sansa's birthright else Sansa and Dany would have ruled as best queens of westeros etc. - all from Daenerys fans!!

This was some kind of superficial notion of girl power with Sansa and Dany girlbossing around Westeros, bow down before these Queens sort of thing and fuck the actual book story. Arya was never included in these conversations because she did not wear dresses and Maisie Williams was not conventionally beautiful like Emilia Clarke and Sophie Turner and therefore did not fit into these Girlboss headcanons.

And then before season 7 was when we got the leaked spoilers of Jonerys meeting at Dragonstone. And this was when the full toxicity of the Jonsa shippers was unleashed. This was when we got 'Political!Jon' and all sorts of vile hate for Daenerys and more and more Dany fans started to react to that hate from the Sansa fandom.

Fandom always, always influences our likes and dislikes of characters (This is why I stay away from some fandoms - I don't want to end up hating characters) And this is what happened here. The Sansa/Jonsa fandom was so vile that a lot of Dany fans on tumblr stopped stanning for Sansa.

Fast forward to 2019 and the same Dany stans - again, not naming names but the very same Dany stans - who attacked me for being a sexist, male dude for critiquing show Sansa in season 6, started critiquing show Sansa when Dany got the same treatment that Jon, Arya and Bran got before her with the show tearing down these characters to prop up Sansa. Suddenly it was no longer misogynistic to call out how these characters were being torn down in order to prop up Sansa when they share scenes with her 😂😂😂.

That’s why I don’t hold much stock in words like ‘misogyny’ and ‘sexist’ randomly thrown around without context by the stans of female characters to attack people for critiquing said female character. I have been at the receiving end of this for years from the Jonsa fandom because I call out their utter nonsense.

The sexism and misogyny occurs when a female character is criticized for doing the same thing a male character is praised for - for ex. Daenerys gets a lot of this because she has parallel arcs with Jon Snow and very often she gets attacked for doing the same things that Jon is praised for. Even the show did this - Dany getting unfair flack for executing traitors when Jon Snow and the North do it all the time. The sexism is in how Arya gets attacked as being ‘male-coded’ because she’s not the right kind of girl. The sexism is in the slut shaming and commentary about how Daenerys is not the right kind of rape victim. The sexism is in the popular theories like political!Jon - wherein Jon Snow turns into LF 2.0 and sexually manipulates and seduces a rape victim.

Sexism is not simply liking a male character or critiquing a female character - there needs to be context. One does not simply throw around these heavy words simply to attack other bloggers to win fandom points. The word then loses it’s meaning.

So yeah, I ended up going on a tangent about my fandom experiences when the show was running. I do think a lot of the beef and toxicity in this fandom comes from shipping and Sansa fans wanting her to be something she is not. They want her to be a tier I main character with the story revolving around her love life as she Disney princess rules the North with sewing and dancing. And this leads to them diminishing the actual main characters and taking away from main characters to give to her. Naturally fans of the main character are going to push back against this.

And Sansa is a classist, sexist character and so her fans espouse classist, sexist viewpoints to justify her actions. Their love for all things 'traditional' and sticking to the status quo - 'Jon being KITN would be boring, he should stay a bastard, Arya being lady of WF is not right as she does not want to wear dresses, Dany will be mad like her father she can't escape her genes, Tyrion is doomed' etc. is based on Sansa being a traditional, pro-status quo character. Hence why there is so much clashing of ideas and discourse happening in the fandom.

So yeah. Honestly, I am just tired of seeing all these posts bothsiding fandom drama and making it seem like all the stans are equally responsible when the majority of fandom toxicity is started by stans of one character - Sansa - with the result being fans of other characters pushing back against their nonsense.

[clyytemnestra]

The thing about Aegon’s conquest POTENTIALLY getting an adaptation (because let’s be real we are at very early stages right now) is that it has already unleashed the most boring discourse known to man which is Visenya vs Rhaenys. I also do not trust showrunners to not run with that as the most laziest source of conflict because they are adapting a period of asoiaf history which is essentially-Aegon and co burn everyone who resists and everyone loses apart from Dorne because dragons. And unless they find a way of stretching the dorne conflict out exponentially they got to find SOMETHING that isn’t just wow cool set piece and dragon designs.

[daylander1000]

HotD vs GoT (season 1) ?

I've seen many comparisons between the two and according to some critics (quite a lot of them tbh) HotD is superior or has a potential to be because... reasons. Now, while I do believe that, while comparisons are always odious they sometimes make, but this one is really weird and unjust because a lot of people are still disappointed with how GoT ended (personally, I wasn't happy with how some things played out either, especially in the last two seasons, but I am definitely not that upset four years later and actually remember the show as a whole more or less fondly) and this disappointment together with anti D&D discourse probably clouds the judgement. However, they seem to ignore that GoT had 8 seasons and was mostly well liked and praised until the last two, while HOTD has barely begun and already has many problems writing-wise imho. Will those same people, after HOTD ends (and there is no way that everyone will be satisfied with the ending) retrospectively start to hate everything they are praising right now, I wonder? I do sincerely hope that HotD will improve and that every new season will be better then the previous one, but based strictly on the first seasons (I recently rewatched GoT s1) it's GoT >> HotD.

What do you think?

I didn't like GOT. I didn't watch it properly. I tuned in to see how they did some of the bigger moments like Red Wedding and Purple Wedding, and I watched the last two seasons just for asoiaf closure, and honestly, I liked the GOT ending, more or less.

Not Dany being killed by Jon, or Arya vs Night King, or King Bran, but Dany burning the whole place down. Her arc's sort of going there in the books imo. I'm a simple woman—I'm in this for the dragons and for Drogon burning things. I wanted to see Stoneheart and Young Griff and those storylines, but I will take Drogon burning things.

I truly don't get the pretense that HOTD is better than GOT or that Codal & co are in any way better than D&D. I'm giving them less points actually because they saw how GOT unraveled and they've made zero improvements. D&D at least have an excuse—Martin promised to have the books finished when they started. They signed on to adapt, not finish asoiaf on their own strengths. It's a complicated thing that even the creator is struggling with after a decade. They tried, at least.

Codal and co are already floundering in S1. They've already lost narrative coherence. Even the characters aren't coherent. And yes, you can use a time skip to just wave a "People change" flag at all the inconsistencies but come on.

In their defence tho, "And then all the hyper-intelligent special rare sentient magic dragons killed each other in the stupidest ways ever for no real reason" is not an easy story to tell without an extreme amount of hand-waving.

I don't think F&B should exist. I think Martin should have looked it over a couple of times like "Hot six-year-old? Jumping from one dragon to another? WTF is this? This ain't it. Nope."

Honestly, I think HBO just has a bunch of media people on the payroll hyping them up so they can use the emmys for free advertising. Brian Cox is up for a lead actor Emmy with a grand total of three episodes? It's not TV, just HBO living by HBO rules. If they say it's better then it's better. 🤷🏾‍♀️

[buttercuparry]

The problem is the fan of color was posting on an artist of color’s post. The Starks were depicted as white but Jon was a shade tanner to show the link to Rhaegar who the artist imagined as having darker skin. Why was that specifically a problem? These posts about white people not listening to concerns from POC about their art does not apply here. Just as the poster was not aware the artist was POC, the artist was also not aware that the poster was POC. It was also confusing because this was not about the Tully/Stark issue. It was about Rhaegar. Yes, artists should listen to the concerns of POC. But POC artists should also be able to thoughtfully create and play with a series such as asoiaf without being harassed.

True, poc artists should be able to create what they want without being harassed. My post wasn't a critique of the artwork, but of how @/jackoshadows got called racist both implicitly and explicitly. And if the artist is a poc too, then why are we even having a discourse? In fact in the same vein my insinuation of bad faith on the part of artist (whom I assumed was a white person) then destabilizes to bits.

You must surely know anon that jackoshadows has previously extensively written posts on how Jon/Arya/Ned get drawn a particular way and how mostly when in the fandom they are considered plain ( with a focus on Arya), this in a larger sense can fall into an uncomfortable caricature. Add to this the fact that a significant part of the fandom positions House Stark as indegenous to the land in their headcanons, just so that more fans would be against Targaryen restoration. Earlier, in these cases the quoted passage of Jon's dark colouring got used as a defence So yeah, Jacko commenting on this quote wasn't really out of the blue...which is why her getting called racist was so weird to me.

Having said that, yes you are right that this artwork wasn't about Tully vs Stark nor was it a scheme at once again presenting House Stark as vulnerable. But I don't think originally Jacko was making it about that either. She was pointing out a specific area of the artist's reference and said it as it was in the text. Later she even agrees she shouldn't have commented like that on the artist's work. But when it is known or at least could be known by going through her blog, why she might once again have reiterated the textual lines, then how come was there this general sense presented of Jacko having insidious intentions? I think there was even a ask calling her racist asshole. Idk anon you tell me, was this deserved? Perhaps she shouldn't have commented but was this deserved??

[cafeleningrad]

alright, actually I wanted to stay out of any FE 3 Houses discourse because some arguments seem to wrapped into 11 layers of previous fandom dramas and I still have to finish Azure Moon, and still have to go through Silver Snow.Also, as someone who's in the ASOIAF fandom, having to read takes about morally grey designed characters, and conflicted moralities about an RPG which is way more barebones in worldbuilding and sides (although clearly inspired by GoT), it does seem tiring to me.

On the other hand, I did scroll over a post in the vain of "[Edelgard was so wrong to start a war against the Church of Seiros.] Actually the crest system isn't bad. If it really was oppressive then Mercedes and her mother wouldn't have been fallen into poverty. Constance too, btw." Apart from somehow trying to argue the fact that the crest system, a system which privileges social status automatically by bloodline, is a not subtle stand in for a nobility based social hierarchy, the game pointing it out as a problem in the very early chapters, there was also a glaring overlook of systematic sexism in the game. Or in other words, it finally clicked to me, someone who avoided fandom discussions, why such arguments are brought up, and to an extend why the Edelgard vs Rhea discourse (TM) exists in the first place: This fandom doesn't like women. Or to rephrase, this fandom doesn't like women who're not written in a morally conflicted manner. Women who's trauma, decisions and behavior can not be couched into sweetness or quirkiness. Say, women afforded agency but therefore all the pitfalls and nuance that comes with consequential decisions.

The crest system is as much a problem in Foádlan as much as sexism is. These two systematic problems are interlinked.

I think everyone is allowed their space to like or dislike a certain kind of character but I find it very interesting how the most discussed character are women (Edelgard and Rhea) in a role, in hindsight of the fandom's history, usually a man would have in an FE title as villain with a cause - and fun thing, these men are barely talked about or praised for their nuance (Lyon). At least I've not seen much discourse about Randolph starting a war because of Duma's impending downfall. (And I get why "actually that female character is the best, all she does is amazing" is annoying when in the text the character is actually flawed. On the other hand, I get the reactionary sentiment because fandom spaces in general like to dump down on female characters more aggressively than on any male characters, most of the time.)

So, sexism in Fódlan. Clearly, FE 3 Houses is not the first tile to tackle systems as the problem rather than ghoulish non-creatures by force-of-darkness-dragons. But it is also true that in it's history, women of the title series were victim of sexist writing. In Awakening the Aversa on the evil side isn't only dark skinned but also clad in sexy latex, the darkest character we get is Tharja who's creepiness in repackaged as quirky yandere behavior. Eirika is a)not even cleverly duped by Lyon's schemes leading to the dark hour in her route b) not afforded the moral conflict with Lyon's complicated, ambiguous motivation like Ephraim, excluding Eirika from any more layered storytelling. And, 3 House's predecessor, Echoes, oh boy...! Listen, I like Echoes but this there're is such a load of sexism in in it. Celica is given the more difficult choice how to deal with Mila's absence while also being manipulated by Jedah. Her mistakes get punished by death, which Mila ex-machina-fied but from Alm's route. In Alm's route we do not have only one but entire four damsels in distress, in Celica's route, counting herself it plus her being brainwashed, two damsels in distress. Oh, and all the endings where only Silque is granted autonomy, every other girl is pushed into a cozy marriage with childbirth. (And ouch, Faye still being hung up on Alm with own family.)

So yeah, I kinda understand why the fandom is, in a historical sense, not used to women with agency or narrative conflict. Even less so with tackling sexism within the narrative. Women in the title series are barely unpleasant, and if they're on the "evil" side it comes with sexually aggressive character design, and not much character depth.

But whereas the game is very explicit in pointing out that arbitrary birth lottery systems like the crest system is bad by displaying the Church's enforcement of the crest order, and reasons why people might want to turn against it with Lord Lonato, and Miklan in Chapter 4 and 5, the problem of sexism is not named this explicitly. Yet it is constant theme and source of struggle in the life for the female cast. Interestingly, the most freedom of choice about a life is afforded to women within the Church. Most women who're not depend on a men to have a career as cleric, or warrior like Shamir, Catherine, and Manuela (her dependence on a man is entirely for romantic purposes and played as a joke) is in the Church. Well and of course, Rhea as century long leading Archbishop. In contrast, most women outside the Church don't have that freedom, in fact their crest becomes a problem.

The only exception might be Leonie: Outside the church order, lowborn, choosing a career as sellwsord on her own. What is also strikes me as interesting detail is the fact that Leonie is by behavior, interests, and design rather gender non-conforming. And well Petra, who's culture lies outside the faith and system of Seiros.

But already with Dorothea, another lowborn girl, the problem of a woman's position in Fóadlan becomes very apparent, especially in her exchange with Caspar: Without a crest (for which she was discarded on the streets), without a high social standing, even as a famous singer in the opera company, not being securely married means an incredibly unsafe future. For Caspar, the male equivalent of having neither crest nor remarkable, is making a career in the military - in spite of him being born as a noble.

Dorothea's problem gets mirrored so often in the life of noble women. Dorothea has to find a got match, the noble women are forced into it, and they can't get opt out of participating in the system. Ingrid's constantly pressured and guilty to marry and pass on her crest - otherwise her family will fall from their noble position. Part of the reason Ingrid's still hung up on Glenn is the fact that she a) genuinely liked him b) without his existence her future, a marriage with a noble who would've also accepted her wish to become a knight, therefore her family's future is incredibly uncertain. Her family does all to present her as good match, to the point of likely starving in order for Ingrid, the crest bearer, to survive. In spite of Ingrid describing her father as kind, on sidequest reveals how urgent the matter of marrying Ingrid off is to him that he possibly overlooks less favourable candidates. And Ingrid herself feels incredibly guilty for prioritizing warfare, the liberation of her kingdom over making a match.

There're so many unseen women in the story who's tragic stories revolve around the crest system. Hanneman's sister died due to the burden of the crest system, Balthus's mother's crest was not seen as something prestigious she was chased away from the happy marriage with Lord Albrecht. The crest didn't protect her. Balthus himself gets continuously harassed by his stepmother because she sees his crest as a danger to her own son's fortune. Also note, the one's suffering physical abuse due to having crests are all women: Hapi, Edelgard, Lysithea. They've explicitly fallen victim to human experimentation because of their crests. The Agartha's are those who conducted the experiments on the three, but in Edelgard's and Lysithea's case those who handed them over in the first place were the Adrestian nobles. Who actually get retaliated against with stripping their power when Edelgard ascends the throne. (Just to make it clear, this is not a pro-Edelgard point, it is to point out that the text explicitly names that human (male) nobels very much exploit the crest system for their own.

Also, there's Marianne. Instead of being cared for, and helped through her fear and guilt caused by the crest of Maurice, her uncle expects her to act all the noble part. While both of them seem to be in agreement to not talk about the crest of Maurice, for Marianne it brings too much pain, Marianne is left alone with her sorrow which might have not been resolved if not for the support and care of her classmates.

And let's get to Mercedes because the comment that the crest system isn't at fault for Mercedes' and her mother's social downfall is so crassly overlooking the text for an easy "gotcha" against a disliked character who is waging war against a system. Because yes, sexism and the hierarchical unfairness link in Mercedes' story. As mentioned before, lowborn women either marry or go to the Church for a more autonomous life, noble women with crests, like Ingrid are pressured into marriage. And the latter is very much true for Mercedes and her mother. Lady von Martritz only remarried because the Bartels wanted her to birth a crest bearing heir (Emil). Her entire function was serving a prestigeous childbirth. They both fled House Bartels because they got treated badly after their function to baron Bartel's was disbanded.

When Mercedes became of age she was viewed as an access to prestige not as a noble person. The problem here isn't that the crest system doesn't make a person not privileged. the problem is, that women in Fóadlan aren't given a personhood outside male dependency/inside the church. Even though Mercedes desperately tries to remain within the sanctity of the church her own stepfather, and a greedy merchant try to pry her away from it in order to exploit Mercedes as crest producer. (I mean, despite Mercedes' so gentle demeanour, her story line is extremely oppressive. The reason for Emil murdering his own father was because to protect his sister from getting sexually exploited.) So the Ladies of House Matritz, like Ingrid, are seen only as valuable as in they can pass on crests. It's sexism that lead the poor treatment of the remaining members of House Matritz - because the crest system interlinks with sexism in making women only as valuable as the crest they bear.

(Note on Constance why House Nouvelle fell: Well, she's a woman, duh. No but seriously, partly Constance is an unfortunate position because she's an additional DLC character who needed a bit of liberation from the Adrestian Empire in her actions because the Ashen Wolves are written as outcasts. Within the text, her proximity to Mercedes is interesting as she basically was befallen the same social downfall situation as Mercedes. And well yes, she's a woman who didn't receive any help, like Mercedes didn't receive any.)

In short: Whereas Miklan is an exemplary in the story why the crest system as class issue leads to abuse and neglect of human lives, notice how many women are victim to forced marriage, bad life conditions by failing to bring up the expected crests, or not having one. The crest system only gives women so much value as their crests are considered worth passing on. The crest itself doesn't protect women, within the events and background stories of FE 3 Houses it was only cause for exploitation and (physical) abuse. Last note: Whereas for Sylvain his struggles stem from the cycle of abuse passed on from Miklan to him because of the crest system, it is interesting how for many male characters other issues like poverty, racism, false ideals are more at their personal forefront of the many systematic problems Fóadlan entails for them. For the women, most issues are caused by the crests they bear. (Even Flayn/Cethleann isn't spared from it, although in her case it's a bit more complicated.)

Unsorted note on my thoughts on women the FE 3 Houses fandoms likes to bash on: (In a more tame version, it can be seen how some people despise Ingrid. Sorry, but in a game which has many sideplots about people growing together, out of the systematic barriers they're caged in, it is quiet unrealistic that only face- and nameless NPCs are perpetrators of systematic problems like racism. Ingrid being first abrasive to Dedue because of bias and unresolved trauma about Duscur, to later fumble her way in seeing her mistakes and doing better to Dedue is like... part of the theme? And funny enough, Hilda brushing over the fact that Cyril was previously enslaved by her family doesn't get as much scrutiny.)

[la-pheacienne]

24

If we leave out the entire greens/blacks rabit hole, it has got to be the following :

The Arya vs Sansa brainrot. I BRIEFLY participated in it but my god I can't anymore it has got to be one of the most boring, downright nonsensical fights in the entire asoiaf fandom. Like yeah I take Arya's side, I am not particularly invested in Sansa's storyline and I'm not particularly empathetic towards Cat. But. All these posts after posts after posts about how Arya is actually pretty and we have been gaslighted to think she isn't are just boring guys, I'm sorry. They are. I have Arya stans mutuals that I love though because I love Arya content, I just wish that a huge part of Arya content wouldn't be this eternal struggle to prove how she's better than Sansa. She is better, we know it, let's move on now, stop the goddamn comparisons and the bitterness about who's prettier ffs. I do get where it comes from, but it just never ends.

The Targs being supremacists vs the Targs being world saviours brainrot.

Elia Martell / Lyanna Stark / Rhaegar Targaryen. Just vile.

Tyrion Lannister as a whole I think? From the most loved he became one of the most hated and I am not quite sure how that happened, but out of the posts I have seen where Tyrion was seriously talked about on tumblr the last like 6 months, the vast majority of them were just wild discourse. He is a problem in the fandom rn I think where a big bunch of people pretend he doesn't exist and when they remember him it's cool to shit on him.

The J + C + B brainrot. Still a popular debate I think, still horrified by it.

[sandorcleganeshornswagglingrack]

i’m very late and very new to the asoiaf/got fandom. i’m done w the first book and nearly done w the tv show, and i have yet to kinda read the room round these parts

folks who’ve been around longer than me, i have a few questions:

what’s the tea: what’s the drama? what discourse should i not touch w a 10ft pole? are there any raving “fuck This Character all the homies hate This Character” sides of the fandom?

what are your personal gripes/takes? this blog is neutral ground, feel free to vent. what’s the general fandom consensus on matters vs your personal opinions? what’s some dumb shit that went down? what’s the cringe side of the fandom (every fandoms got one)?

i just want to be polite and not start anything cos like. i’m very easygoing/Do Not Care but i’ve heard some horror stories ab yall and i wanna whore myself out to sandor clegane in peace, can’t do that if i make the wrong “rancid take” joke

[toastyydoodles]

No need to answer to this and I’m bot the same anon, but I’ve been thinking about you and your art in the last few days because I realised you were the same cool person who drew all the Maliki art I used to love (and still do) and it was super fun to rediscover it now that I got back into asoiaf and hadn’t made the connection that some of my favourite asoiaf art was also made by the person who made some of my favourite atla art.

I hope you’re doing alright. Anon baits are getting annoying.

Have a nice day/night.

aww anon, this ask brought a smile to my face! i've been having a pretty tough time lately (just got out of a very toxic and abusive relationship, but i'm healing at my own pace) and i really appreciate your lovely words. you didn't have to send this ask in the first place! but you did ❤️ i'm always grateful for the kindness of others, especially from strangers.

i'm glad that you've found joy in my atla and asoiaf art in the past. i know that i haven't been active lately on my art blog, but i too always come back to asoiaf and i love observing how the fandom has developed over the years. the memes, the theories, and the analyses... they're all wonderful to see and partake in. new and old fans make me care for characters i initially didn't care about or think much of! and i think that's very special 😊

anon bait has always existed, though i feel like i've been seeing a rise of it in the neverending dany/arya vs sansa discourse 🙄 or maybe i'm just following the wrong people? also, while i've witnessed the start of jonerys vs jonsa (vs jonrya to some extent) in the later seasons of GoT's airing, does anyone else who's been part of the asoiaf fandom during that time (or long before) feel like the vitrol has been REALLY bad lately? idk lmk your thoughts lol

but anon, thank you again! i hope you're doing alright too!! luv you ❤️

[aingeal98]

At this point it's safe to say the hotd watchers are split into teams but it's not two teams green vs black it's 4 teams. We've got:

The Normies: Mostly here for cool dragon fights. Mostly haven't read the book and aren't planning on it. Team Black but not in a fanatical way just in a fuck sexism go Rhaenyra kind of way.

The Fire and Blood Enthusiasts: Really, really into Targaryens. Fanatical team black. Daemyra stans. Furious that they're not getting the book adapted with no deviations and every line, no matter how ridiculous, thrown in. Despite complaining about how different the show and book are they also try really really hard to make show Alicent into book Alicent so they can hate her like she's s1 Cersei. Hate this show but also won't stop watching and trying to fit the square peg that is the show characters into the round hole that is the book characters.

The Succession Fans: The ones who say they're team green because the greens are more compelling and the blacks are boring because they. Have healthier love for each other I guess idk (daemon not included). Here mainly for the targtowers and how messed up they are. Did not like that Alicent tried to break the cycle by choosing Rhaenyra and Helaena over her evil sons. Honestly I think some of them would be happier rewatching succession.

The Rhaenicent Fans: Can carry traits from literally any of the three groups above but what sets them apart is that their priority is the gay love story between Rhaenyra and Alicent. The ones who predicted both characters arcs successfully since the start of S2. Also the only ones having a ball because they and the writers are on the same page regarding narrative priorities and no one expected this from a game of thrones spinoff prequel.

I was tempted to make a fifth category for asoiaf book readers but I think they're mostly part of team lesbians or team succession fans. Some f&b targ enthusiasts too, but they're not quite distinct enough when it comes to the Discourse to deserve a fifth category. Because if I divide the fan teams any further I'll eventually up with a team that's just the one fan shipping Helaena and Alys and dreaming about a modern au where they fall in love on tumblr instead of communicating via future vision powers.

[writergirl2011]

So. Book!Jaime and book!Brienne or show!Jaime and show!Brienne. Not as a couple or their relationship (per se) but as separate characters. :)

Book!Jaime and Book!Brienne, by a thousand miles. Warning: I'm in full on rant mode.

We may have gotten glimpses of book Jaime in the show, but as time has gone on, I've realized more and more that we never truly got book Jaime, and it's mostly because Dumb and Dumber hated Jaime as a character. Take, for example, Jaime's iconic line, "The things I do for love" just before he shoves Bran out the tower window. In the book, this scene is told through Bran's POV and he hears Jaime say it with loathing. On the show, Jaime tosses out the line as if to say, "oh well" and probably went back to screwing Cersei. It was just the first step of their assassination of Jaime.

Book!Jaime is a man who struggles to figure out what he's going to do with his life when the one thing that defined him was gone. He's smarter than many give him credit for--including his own siblings--and he shows this throughout his journey in the Riverlands in AFFC. He's figuring out what kind of man he wants to be, and we get a chance to see him in the company of people who like and appreciate him in spite of him being the reviled "Kingslayer." Most importantly, book!Jaime is a man of agency--he names Oathkeeper when he gives it to Brienne, he turns Cersei down when she comes to the White Sword Tower to seduce him into killing Tyrion, and he figures out the best way to bring peace to the Riverlands.

Show!Jaime has almost none, with Dumb and Dumber having decided to make him little more than Cersei's faithful lapdog who came running every time she wanted him. And during the brief times he was with Brienne after their trip through the Riverlands, it felt like the good things he did were at her suggestion--including his decision join the North in the fight against the Others after she told him to "fuck loyalty." It was, quite frankly, their worst interpretation of any character on the show. I don't see how someone can read Jaime's POV from his return to King's Landing in ASOS through his one chapter in ADWD and portray him the way they did. Only possible explanation? They hated Jaime as a character and decided to treat him as such. One of them even referred to Jaime as a "monster" in the season 2 episode where he kills his cousin. The only monstrous thing Jaime does in the entire series to this point is shoving Bran out that window, which don't get me wrong, IS A VERY BAD THING TO DO but...really? "Monster?" No.

The changes made to Brienne from book to show happened, in good part, because they aged her up and took away her AFFC storyline, replacing it instead with her staring at a window until the convenient moment when she decided to take vengeance on Stannis right as Sansa needed her to be there. Book!Brienne is an innocent, noble, idealistic girl who joined the war for love of Renly. She's never even killed anyone and cried when her master-at-arms, Goodwin, had her kill piglets to get a mere idea of what it would be like.

Show!Brienne is older, has seen more of the world, and killing clearly doesn't bother her (especially when you remember the scene where she kills the three Stark men, the last one slowly). She still retains some of Brienne's idealism and has a very strong sense of honor and is definitely stubborn, but book!Brienne wants to be both a lady and a knight. Show!Brienne is forever telling people she's not a lady. The softness that made me fall in love with book!Brienne is missing in her show counterpart. Yes, show!Brienne falls apart when Renly dies and when Jaime leaves her in the Winterfell courtyard, but we see her calm and composed soon after each event. Book!Brienne was near inconsolable after the loss of Renly and after learning of Catelyn's death.

Overall, however, I don't think they did near as much damage to Brienne as a character as they did to Jaime, which is why her show counterpart doesn't anger me as much as his. One of my favorite pieces of fanart has the book versions meeting their show versions. Book!Brienne is startled to meet show!Brienne, who stares up at her in awe. Meanwhile, book!Jaime gives show!Jaime a golden bitch slap. Kinda sums up my feelings.

[him-e]

Hi, I'm the anon who wrote the 5 asks about the Dany plotline and GRRM. I'd like to apologize to u for lashing out, it was uncalled for and u have every right to state those opinions regardless of what I (or anyone else) think. Feeling hurt by the show wrt Dany's story made me react badly to the idea that it was actually acceptable, especially coming from someone whose ideas I appreciate so much and have spent hours invested on. You can answer them, delete them, idk, I just wanted to say sorry.

No need to apologize, anon! I’m currently on semi-to-full hiatus and that’s why I’m being so slow at answering messages—and yeah, I understand the frustration completely, and I don’t blame you for it. ;))

I’m going to answer your ask anyway. Long reply after the cut:

I hope this doesn’t come off as offensive or confrontational bc that’s not the point, I’ve enjoyed reading your ASOIAF/GoT and TB metas for years and would not reply to them if I weren’t invested on them. That said, I’d like to ask why do you insist on 1) arguing that Dany’s dark turn was reasonable if you don’t hate her and 2) defending D&D and blaming GRRM for what happened on the show. When it comes to 1), sure, Dany might *accidentally* burn KL, but to willingly choose to burn thousands of innocents? She may accept that some casualties would have to occur, but not in the way that the show presented (in that she had the choice to not kill anyone but did). You argue that that direction was valid of because of the recurring theme of how power corrupts, but then I’d argue, what if it were Sansa, another character very much involved in the world of politics? Would you be ok if people argued that it’d make sense for her to give up her ideals and become just as power-hungry and cynic and bitter as Littlefinger? Probably not; what’s the point if those characters become their worst possible selves? Dany was made a villain, was implied to be mad and was called “your satanic majesty”. I really can’t see how you could call those writing decisions valid. When it comes to 2), I’m not saying GRRM is perfect, he’s been quite callous in the book series and especially in F&B when it comes to social issues, but D&D are also professional writers with critical thinking skills and moral values of their own who could have tried to alleviate the problems in the books and not made things even worse. That’s why I don’t get why you’re blaming GRRM for what D&D wrote when the former wasn’t even involved in the ending’s writing process aside from possibly giving them an outline of what happens. GRRM should be criticized for what he wrote and will write, and the finale may have feel been a product of his ideas, but he still has no (moral or legal) responsibility in helping to make the TV show better or worse.

The reason why I maintain that the show’s ending is a (badly written) version of GRRM’s ending is that I can 100% see Martin’s blueprint in the climax+anticlimax structure of the season. The way it twists the audience’s expectations and delves into what happens AFTER the final battle is won, the way it subverts the most reliable narrative conventions and, instead of building up in a crescendo towards a final spectacle where the heroes would sacrifice their lives to save the world in a blaze of glory, it shifts gears almost unpleasantly, slows down to show what happens to them once their heroic purpose is fulfilled and zooms in on their identity crisis, their depression and isolation and sudden lack of purpose… it’s all too deliberate, and IN MY PERSONAL OPINION it’s done with a vision in mind—something I don’t believe d&d would spontaneously put any effort in, especially not if GRRM had already served them a perfectly fine, crowd-pleasing endgame involving Dany’s heroic sacrifice against the Others.

I understand my stance might come across as “defending d&d and blaming GRRM”, but I’m really not? I’ve often repeated how I believe d&d messed things up and that GRRM’s version will make infinitely more sense and be infinitely better written, and I’m sure he will avoid the pitfalls of cynical, circular storytelling, because he’s ultimately a better writer and someone who believes in idealism and true heroism even as he deconstructs it. How can the overall narrative remain uplifting & give a message of hope and faith for humanity while still telling a story that ends with Dany’s descent into��“true villainy” (but haven’t we repeated ad nauseam that heroes and villains are too reductive categories for asoiaf?), I don’t know, but it’s not my job to figure it out, and I ultimately trust & respect Martin’s vision and ability to tell the story HE wants.

sure, Dany might *accidentally* burn KL, but to willingly choose to burn thousands of innocents? She may accept that some casualties would have to occur, but not in the way that the show presented

1) I’ve always conceded that, while I think the gist of the storyline is Martin’s, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the battle of King’s Landing will go as we’ve seen in the show, or even happen at the same point of the story (for one thing, Young Griff & JonCon will probably be involved, and that seems more likely to happen before, and not after, the war for the dawn);

2) That said, what I’m relatively confident of, at this point, is that Dany will NOT die in the WftD as a self sacrificial hero (this is entirely FANON SPECULATION, and people treating it like a fixed point in the universe, something the narrative is “inevitably” building towards, is one of the reasons the fandom seems unable to critically analyze show!Dany’s evolution without going hysterical about it and resorting to no true scotsman arguments. I’ve often complained about the dangers of elevating fan theories to canon status, and trust me I never wanted to go full cassandra about this, but here we are). The details and plot points leading up to this might be wildly different from the show’s version, but I think Dany will survive the WftD, which will leave her directionless and purposeless and doubting the truth of her heroic destiny for the first time in her life after she hatched the dragons, and that she’ll cross the ultimate moral horizon in a hail mary to restore that sense of self, that sense of purpose, completing her parabola from princess in rags, to breaker of chains, to conqueror, to savior of humanity, to conqueror again, to TRAGIC HERO. How can this be a valid writing decision, you asked—well, why shouldn’t it? Is something only valid as long as it pleases the audience? What screams tragic hero more than the hero turning into the very thing she swore to eradicate, and realizing it only when it’s too late? There’s something genuinely chilly in Dany’s “if I look back, I’m lost” refrain. This is the mantra of someone who thinks the only way to stay alive is to cross one threshold after the other. So far this coping mechanism has brought her higher, and higher, and higher. But what if it will be her downfall? “I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell”, indeed;

3) Dany’s burning KL *accidentally* is like Stannis burning Shireen “but only if the circumstances are dire enough / the stakes are high enough”. No offense, but this is typical stan logic: you admit the possibility that your faves might go through a dark phase but you don’t want to have to unstan them, so you want them to do bad things for good reasons, or because there’s no other choice, or because “they didn’t know”. That’s understandable, but I don’t think Martin is the type of writer to give his character free passes or soften the blow of their moral crucibles like that. This is NOT to say that the show did Dany’s dark turn WELL, because it DIDN’T—her motivations were all over the place, the turning point (the bells) wasn’t believable because it lacked connection to her character arc, the narrative backed away from showing the attack from her pov which betrays the writers’ inability to make sense of this psychological downfall from HER perspective, etc. But to say “Dany will NEVER! BURN! INNOCENTS! ON PURPOSE!” sounds very, very premature to me.

(re: Sansa, hasn’t power corrupted her too, to an extent? Hasn’t she lied, schemed, manipulated, spilled secrets, in order to restore & secure the Stark hold on the North? Isn’t she queen, in part, because the rest of her family was scattered at the four corners of the known world? I’m not particularly happy with the way she was written this season, and I think some of her choices were questionable; but at the same time I reject the idea that a character ending up more flawed, or morally ambiguous, or less likeable than they were at the beginning must necessarily be bad storytelling)

I’m not saying GRRM is perfect, he’s been quite callous in the book series and especially in F&B when it comes to social issues, but D&D are also professional writers with critical thinking skills and moral values of their own who could have tried to alleviate the problems in the books and not made things even worse. That’s why I don���t get why you’re blaming GRRM for what D&D wrote when the former wasn’t even involved in the ending’s writing process aside from possibly giving them an outline of what happens. GRRM should be criticized for what he wrote and will write, and the finale may have feel been a product of his ideas, but he still has no (moral or legal) responsibility in helping to make the TV show better or worse.

Martin is not responsible of the show’s writing, but he is responsible of the outline he gave to the showrunners, and right now I have no reason to believe they didn’t follow it, at least for the most part. For years I’ve been told that “the show is not the books”, and while that’s certainly true, I can’t, and won’t, separate the show from the books when it comes to book speculation, because the show is still for all intents and purposes an ADAPTATION of the book series, and while it’s irresponsible to expect it to be a 1:1 transcription of what will happen in TWOW and ADOS, it’s also equally (imo) irresponsible to act like the two canons have nothing to do with each other and that it’s stupid to use the show as a resource for book speculation. If people want to pretend the show never happened, good for them, but that’s not the way I think, personally. I don’t blame GRRM for the show’s faults, and my reservations are actually 90% about the EXECUTION of the plot which is ENTIRELY on d&d, but there’s a 10% of my concerns that is about the IDEA in itself, regardless of context and execution—the idea of the story ending with a bittersweet anticlimax involving the death/downfall of the MOST PROMINENT FEMALE HERO OF THE SERIES, who is also the carrier of the most subversive anti-establishment political message in the story.

tldr: I’m not criticizing GRRM for what he hasn’t written yet, but I can certainly criticize him for what I think is a (however botched) adaptation of his outline, if the main selling points of said outline are questionable in themselves. No one can convince me that GRRM told d&d that Jon and Dany would die heroically to save the world and they ARBITRARILY decided to fuck it up for shock value or whatever, and just accidentally stumbled onto a more subversive and provocative ending than what Martin HIMSELF was planning. (that would make them two geniuses, even if the execution sucked, lol)

and if i’m wrong about it, well:

but until then…

[herawell]

.

[melrosing]

“I like this winds update. wish it had come straight after GOT and spared us all the discourse over the books ending the same way”

It actually is very similar to the update he gave after Game of Thrones ended and he used the same examples and expressions that he’s always used when talking about the ASOIAF and Game of Thrones differences. All sides of the fandom just want to believe what they want to believe and interpret his words accordingly. He hasn’t changed his answer at all.

I don't think he's necessarily changed his answer, just that it's become more emphatic. Some people post-GOT felt that 'same but different' could easily mean 'roughly identical events played out somewhat differently, with some bonus minor subplots in the background', and I think parts of that first blog lent themselves to that reading. Now it's harder to interpret his words that way:

"What I have noticed more and more of late, however, is my gardening is taking me further and further away from the television series"

"The novels are much bigger and much much more complex than the series"

"Some things will be the same.   A lot will not." [emphasis mine]

This is GRRM drawing pretty clear lines between what's GOT's and what's his, lines that weren't as clear in his post-GOT blog. I don't think that means that his version was significantly more similar to the show's ending in 2019, just that he was treading more lightly back then which led to all the GOT trutherism lol. To draw some quotes from then:

Book or show, which will be the “real” ending?   It’s a silly question.   How many children did Scarlett O’Hara have? (I think the Scarlett O'Hara metaphor is pretty hopeless, as the number of children she has in either version does not change her as a character, nor does it change her arc/themes. Patently in GOT's case, these things were changed for most if not all characters. But as I say, it's GRRM being delicate.)

Well… yes.  And no.  And yes.   And no.   And yes.   And no.   And yes. (I've stated already I'm pretty confident saying they couldn't possibly be substantially the same, even back then, but this line leaves room to interpret things as like 'roughly half and half', compared to what he says now which is 'some the same vs a lot that's different')

" And of course the butterfly effect will be at work as well" (he then goes onto to talk mostly about minor characters, whereas in his most recent blog he's talking almost entirely about the 'gardening method (i.e. the butterfly effect)' and how it's impacting virtually everything)

also notable is this imo lol:

Yarra Greyjoy is not Asha Greyjoy, and HBO’s Euron Greyjoy is way, way, way, way different from mine

like.... lol. This kind of tone is distinctly absent from 2019's blog.

In short, I don't think much has changed GRRM's end, the story was always going to be substantially different in his books, and increasingly so as he goes. The post-show blog is less forthright about that than this latest. I like his latest because it's now practically spelt out for anyone still bashing square pegs into round holes - tracing back from S8 isn't the answer, MOVE ON

[jackoshadows]

Fandom hypocrisy at it’s finest.

ASoIaF fandom: Sansa is going to bring about hope and change and is the change from within the system and is the best diplomat who will go North and negotiate peace between the different houses and is the kindest, most intelligent and compassionate character who will be the leader of the North. Arya will sail off on adventures because she has nothing to contribute to Winterfell or the North and will not want to be with her family.

Arya fans: Well, here’s all the ways that Arya has a leadership arc in the books, here’s the book quotes from the text of Arya being displeased with the status quo and wanting things to be different, here’s how Arya’s arc resonates with GRRM’s themes of why misogyny, classism and war is bad, here are the book quotes that shows Arya’s connection to Winterfell and Ned Stark, GRRM has Brienne following Arya in the Riverlands, the North is rising up for Arya Stark and at the wall Jon ends up dying for Arya - Arya is important. here’s all the text that shows how Arya wants to be home in Winterfell and wants to be with Jon and family, how her wanting to go on adventures is about ‘being careful what you wish for’ just like Sansa wanting to marry a beautiful prince and becoming queen, Jon wanting to go to the wall and becoming a great ranger etc. etc etc.

ASoIaF fandom: This Arya Vs Sansa discourse is so toxic. Why can’t we all admit that both sisters have complementary skillsets and sun and moon blah blah blah

Arya fans:

This is what I am talking about. The only narrative that’s allowed to exist in this nonsense fandom is about Sansa being awesome. The minute someone points out that Arya has an arc that points to leadership, the discourse is ‘Toxic’ and why can’t we all hold hands and sing kumbaya.

According to the fandom bnfs:

Saying that Sansa is better than Arya at leadership, diplomacy, intelligence, connection to the North and Winterfell etc is good ASoIaF theory/Meta

Saying that Arya is better than Sansa at leadership, diplomacy, intelligence, connection to the North and Winterfell etc is toxic Arya Vs Sansa discourse.

And round and round we go. Stuff’s frigging tiresome.

And Arya IS better than Sansa at surviving with the smallfolk in war torn Westeros because GRRM build up to that in the books, by giving Arya the characteristics to befriend them and get along with them and making her clever and perceptive. Nothing wrong with Arya being better than Sansa - it’s not the end of the world. Arya is arguably GRRM’s central female character in the series - he loves the character, loves writing for her, mentions her spontaneously when he talks ASoIaF, she’s the character with the third most POV chapters after Tyrion and Jon. He is giving her skillsets in Braavos to sniff out lies and be manipulative and emotionless and play the charming lady.

Sansa is near tears about being called a bastard by Harry the Heir in the sixth book! Pretend bastard Sansa actually has more power than real bastard Jon Snow had in Winterfell - she is ordering about servants in the Vale and threatening the Maester to give SR more Sweetsleep. And she is upset that Harry called her a bastard and not being able to dance. Meanwhile Arya has torn clothes, cracked feet, messy hair/no hair, and is a blind beggar on the streets! Can you imagine Sansa in that scenario? No? Because that’s the character GRRM has written.

Could Arya have survived in King’s Landing? From Harrenhal we know she could have kept her mouth shut and taken abuse. She would not have been killed because she is a valuable hostage same as Sansa. She would have been badly abused by Joffrey considering it was Arya who shamed him at the Trident, but she would not have been killed because she was a Stark hostage. The Lannisters had to get Jeyne Poole to impersonate her, that’s how important Arya is to them. So yes, she would have survived KL.

But the situation did not come to that because Arya got out and made her way to the Wind Witch, saw the guards there and realized they were not WF men and escaped. Sansa meanwhile tattled to the lady who ordered her pet wolf killed, leading to Cersei setting that trap at the Wind Witch for Arya. The girls went on different story arcs because they are different in terms of intelligence, perceptiveness and family loyalty. Arya would not betray Jon even to their own father, Sansa meanwhile betrays her father to Cersei, sides with Joffrey against Arya at the Trident and throws Arya under the bus as having ‘traitor’s blood’.

Arya, Jon and Bran are all intelligent, kind and considerate. Sansa is catching up to them in her chapters - that does not make her more kind, compassionate or intelligent than them. Pointing that out is not hate or toxic discourse.