#grrm deserved a better adaptation

[so-what-then]

House of the Dragon season 2 review

Highlights:

Better Aegon.

Criston becoming a decent character.

Giving Rhaena parts of Nettle’s subplot.

The idea of Daemon’s vision quest in theory.

Aemond trying to get shit done, what a king 👑

Lowlights:

Literally everything else.

Not a single redeeming female character. Not a single one.

Alicent is a punk bitch.

Rhaenyra is fucking stupid.

Why. Would you make Mysaria, the sneaky worm lady, a pacifist philanthropist?

Helaena reduced to pacifist spoiler machine when she could've been a confused oracle with her own arc.

Where 👏Are 👏The 👏Battles👏?

Nothing happens even when stuff is happening! No one's death means anything!

Dialogue sucked. How many more moody shots of characters staring into the middle distance and meditating on the unfairness of the world do we need?

“The innocents” MAN FUCK THE INNOCENTS THIS IS WAR.

They neutered and sidelined my boy Corlys! His subplot deserved more.

Daemon’s vision quest should have lasted 2 episodes tops.

Stop with the “sOnG oF ICe&fIRe” omg so stupid.

We don’t need forced queer rep from Rhaenyra and Mysaria of all people 🥴

The dragonseeds plot development happens in the most scooby doo way possible.

While giving Rhaena more to do is good in theory, having a dragon roam freely has consequences for the lore.

Honestly what the show chose to include and not include is baffling. Why drop Jace’s time in the North? Why not show Rhaena attempting to tame Seasmoke instead of referencing it in passing? Why include another shot of Alicent looking depressed? Why is Gwayne there if he doesn't do anything? Why show a Rhaenyra and Alicent sleepover multiple times??

In conclusion, hollywood feminism and stupidity ruined hotd. Don’t let the media gaslight you into thinking otherwise, this show is sexist as hell and butchers the source material.

[sunfyrisms]

what ryan condal and sara hess have done to house of the dragon is insulting. it’s insulting to grrm, it’s insulting to the actors and actresses who have given so much, it’s insulting to the fans. do they think we cannot comprehend the inherit nuance and tragedy of the original story? we are being spoon fed an adaption of a story that isn’t even good. there’s no complexity in the story or the characters, they make it abundantly clear who we need to root for. they make some characters saints and other characters absolutely awful and… for what? it’s so clear they do not care about the story. they don’t care about how carefully and intricately it was crafted, they don’t care about the characters. this goes beyond it simply being different because it’s an adaptation. they don’t care about the story and its message. it’s truly just a fanfic and a giant cash grab. this story deserves better.

[horizon-verizon]

On this here day, GRRM wrote an entry clarifying several things about the dragon lore in his novels, and it vindicates so many Dany stans/Daenerys as the Azor Ahai:

Saying dragon "mysteries", in-world, will be revealed in the last two books AND Septon Barth got a lot right. I'm taking that to mean that dragons change sex (Viserion, here you come, baby!), like two particular Twitter mutes I have (danylanzhou and Branwynwitch). It also seems like he's confirming that dragons and the first 40 Valyrian families (which include the Targs, then and now) mixed dragon blood with their own in some long past ancient event AND that only these families, therefore, can bond with dragons to rides them safely or befriend them.

Which means Nettles is definitely of Valyrian/Targ-descent, which really should have been obvious. One of my mutuals also asserted that this makes the idea of Nettles-Sheepstealer/Rhaena-Morning being interchangeable for their supposed HotD merging GRRM-disapproved bc he makes a point to say that dragons don't tend to move far from their lairs that are usually very high up in mountains and volcanos. Sheepstealer can't be going to the Vale while having a lair in Dragonstone:

As for the thought of Sunfyre flying miles to get to Dragonstone...this is where he/they were born and where the real magic that sustains dragons is coalesced from hundred of years. It makes sense for him/them to fly to this castle even if Aegon weren't there after he had been bodied by Meleys/Meleys & Vhagar, looking for recovery. This is where the Targs get most of their eggs/dragons and it is near where most dragons in Westeros make their lairs.

Note that he says, in the very last paragraph, how:

Fantasy needs to be grounded.  It is not simply a license to do anything you like. Smaug and Toothless may both be dragons, but they should never be confused. Ignore canon, and the world you’ve created comes apart like tissue paper.

It appears he is VERY not happy about something to do with dragons in the show's second season, how they bond in the show, how a certain dragon is "explained" to have traveled a too-long distance for a certain pale-locked young girl who has been trying to hatch her own dragon for years...I see you GRRM, fighting for Nettles AND Rhaena I see.

Oh, and just bc he said he liked epi 2, doesn't mean that he cannot critique anything about HotD ever again...he is the writer and creator of this universe that they are capitalizing on. As long as a writer of any genre stays logically consistent and relatively undiscriminatory in their original writing, they definitely can tell any of us readers what is real and not real or possible in their own creations! That this is even up for debate is a travesty to logic.

Mind you, this is the same man who said the show and the book are two separate canons AND that adaptations "nowadays" tend to fail bc the adapters think they can make the story "better" and ignore critical lore details. And in his latest commentary on HotD's S2 first two episodes, he says, and I quote:

“Rhaenyra the Cruel” has been getting great reviews, for the most part.   A lot of the fans are proclaiming it the best episode of HotD, and some are even ranking it higher than the best episodes of GAME OF THRONES.   I can hardly be objective about these things, but I would certainly say it deserves to be in contention.   The only part of the show that is drawing criticism is the conclusion of the Blood and Cheese storyline.   Which ending was powerful, I thought… a gut punch, especially for viewers who had never read FIRE & BLOOD.   For those who had read the book, however… Well, there’s  a lot of be said about that, but this is not the place for me to say it.   The issues are too complicated.   Somewhere down the line, I will do a separate post about all the issues raised by Blood and Cheese… and Maelor the Missing.  There’s a lot to say.

Note that the latest post was about epi4 and this one I just linked is only abt epi 1 &2....so where are his thoughts for the hated/comedic epi3?! (we see each other, George). (BTW, I gave my thoughts on his thoughts about 1 & 2, HERE.)

I'll say it once again: though GRRM praised the portrayal of grief, defended Cheese being lost, and loved the dog (the last I don't fault anyone for, I also loved them) in the Blood & Cheese episode, he also expressly talks AROUND how Blood & Cheese and Helaena actually interacted and comments on the Maelor-lessness (therefore the lack of Sophie's Choice) that many people--inclu myself--have been saying was a huge problem.

Now we have two different sources that seem to support the ideas of:

GRRM both not being as "involved" with the actual writing of this show for a bit AND not approving of a lot of critical changes

HotD's writers cannot create anything truly "canon" or "real/true" for this universe, it only can make any sort of "sense" if it also retrieves information from the original tale, which is not really just F&B but THE ENTIRE SET OF AVAILABLE BOOKS!

[agentrouka-blog]

Have you read the last post of GRRM in Not A Blog? He wrote this:

That was all back in 2022, but very little has changed since then.   If anything, things have gotten worse.   Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and “make them their own.”   It does not seem to matter whether the source material was written by Stan Lee, Charles Dickens, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, Jane Austen, or… well, anyone.   No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and “improve” on it.   “The book is the book, the film is the film,” they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound.   Then they make the story their own. They never make it better, though.   Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse. Once in a while, though, we do get a really good adaptation of a really good book, and when that happens , it deserves applause. I can came across one of those instances recently, when I binged the new FX version of SHOGUN.

Seems he is pissed at HBO?

Yeah, he was good at pretending he didn't mind the changes in GOT, but I remember reading that before the series, he had a lot of people come to him and propose how they would adapt the books, sometimes only focusing in Jon, or Dany, and he didn't like those ideas because they weren't taking into account they were not the only main characters. He was also against adapting his books because he knew the technology wasn't good and wouldn't be a good production.

With GOT, he defended the differences, but in the latest post you can read between the lines how dissappointed he was with the adaptation of his books.

I mean, he could have said that before SHOGUN he was fine with GOT (or HOTD), right? I imagine he doesn't mention them because... well, he prefers to be part of the writers and try to save some of his ideas, and you want to have a good environment, is better if you don't criticize them, right?

Whoa. That is not a subtle dig, isn't it?

He makes no mention of HOTD or GOT but the sheer omission itself seems incredibly damning to me.

[fromtheseventhhell]

did people actually hate sahnsa or they just didn’t like her as much as arya and her stans and s*phiet took that personally?! her character is the worst written character in the show is unbelievable. a recycled cersei 2.0 and it’s all her and her ego’s fault. give dumb people some attention and they will never stop being annoying . i don’t know how but the writers were the whitest most cliched writers ever. they saw that cersei and sahnsa are dumb and get called dumb by everyone and said: yea that’s realism, that’s complex, guys they wear dresses and work through the system, they are politicians and no one hears them GUYS COMPLEXITY. meanwhile dany and arya just bc they are smart and bold and angry and do more then cersei or sahnsa ever did for ANYONE in their privileged lives in the books, were reduced to girl bosses of the show, one died bc no one loved her in contrast to amaZIng qitn, and the other didn’t care abt anything, not even being a hero who saved humanity, the connection to jon that they have in the books, pure and full of love, nonexistent obviously, and fucked away to god knows where. these two are the main female characters, the pillars on whom this story even had the grounds on when grrm started writing ?!?! how did they do this to these two??? I am glad dany stans took the show down. DESERVED. I don’t want Arya’s actress near the jonsnowshow, let them have their weird j*nsa show together with kit. s*phiet already trashed on arya and maisie..let s*phie and kit have their porn together they are so weird fr with each other. I can’t take anything seriously past s4. putting sahnsa on the center was thedowngrade. and I am glad the fans dragged it to filth. and they should drag it to filth till the books are out and u all get proved wrong. can’t believe they did this to emilia too!! arya and dany deserved better

What's funny is, that's exactly it. It's not that Sansa receives some super special, "feminine" only hatred from fandom it's just that she's not as popular as her stans (and Sophie) wanted her to be. The show did a lot to boost her importance and popularity BUT that also happened around the same time to quality of the writing started to go down. D&D were making changes as early as the first season of course, but when they decided to give Jeyne's plotline to Sansa they were officially done with adapting the books. And you know what? People noticed. They were, rightfully, calling out the poor writing of the entire show but Stansas (and Sophie 💀) took it personally because they liked the importance she was being handed. It wasn't even the writing itself that they liked because despite the increased emphasis on her character, she wasn't actually doing much in the later seasons. Along with that there were plenty of reasons to dislike how she was written. And it still didn't give her the popularity people wanted. Daenerys and Arya were, and are, still fan favorites despite how much they were flattened and warped. Stansa's just thought that she was so great that everyone would start hating Dany and Arya and fawn over their fave instead.

As for the actors, my sympathy's solely lie with Emilia. She was the one who cared the most about her character and having her accurately adapted from the books but the writer's went out of their way to destroy Dany. One of the reasons I want the books to be finished, besides the obvious, is because I want her to experience Dany getting the writing she deserves in some form at least. Arya's character was done dirty but at the time Maisie was fully on board with it (though to her credit she has since admitted that the ending was bad). You can tell Sophie was very invested in Sansa's perception (she was very much projecting on her and liked the favoritism), and she's probably the only cast member actually happy about the show ending. Kit's feelings towards the ending feel artificial and more rooted in him wanting to get his spin-off off the ground.

Tbh I do think that Sophie coming back for the spin-off is more unlikely then Maisie, just from the fact that Kit doesn't personally like Sanas's character which is pretty funny. If there's one thing we don't have to worry about it's Jonsa happening with him being involved in the writing. Not even having George on board would make me interested in whatever story they have to tell though because it has to follow that horrible show. I do love that D&D shot themselves in the foot with their writing; they got fired from the project they rushed to finish GOT for and the show is universally considered one of the worst series finales of all time 😂

[ceoofhelaegon]

I don't know how unpopular/popular this opinion is but honestly

Book!Aegon>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Show!Aegon and it's not even close

Book!Helaena>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Show!Helaena

The Genius writers thought they did something with her character when they just add dragonsdreams in her character and thought that was enough while at the same time, they have taken away her son Maelor (it would suck so bad if they made b&c about Jaehaerys and jaehaera) , they took her bond with dreamfyre as well, book!Helaena has a very strong bond with her dragon and she loved flying, they have took the people's love for her. How can it be believable now if the smallfolk rose against Rhaenyra because of Helaena's death? If they ever adapted that part anyways. And don't let me start about Aegon, i am still and i will always be bitter about his characterization in the show. They have took a grey, complex and flawed character from the book then turned him into the antichrist in the show lmao. They thought rape wasn't enough so they add the part of him watching his bastards children kill eachother for shits and giggles when it's canon that the only thing that made Aegon so cruel and ruthless is the death of his son Jaehaerys. They literally made him much worse that what Mushroom has ever claimed about him and then start gaslighting us that they made him a sympathetic and grey character 😍

Nonnie, you’re a person after my own heart.

I do think that Helaena was also a dreamer in the books, I mean GRRM didn’t give her Dreamfyre for no reason.

B&C being between Jaehaerys and Jaehaera is honestly so dumb, it clearly says “a son for a son” so it will always be obvious that Jaehaerys will die, they’ll be no suspense…but the writers already butchered so much, what’s one more thing?

Helaena is crowned by her mother, and becomes Queen WITH Aegon but only one woman is allowed to becoming Queen in the show.

Helaena should be WAY more than her dreams, she’s a great mother and yet she hasn’t spent any time with her children. She helps Alicent with the peace terms, convinced Aegon to send them yet she only talks in prophetic words. Just when it comes to the toast (it was funny but it doesn’t scream loyalty from the greens to each other).

Aegon being a bully to his brother, with the Strong kids?!

Also, we can’t forget the main criminal offence that was not having Aegon defend Helaena and being angry at Jace trying to dance with her, the dancing never happened in the books, god, I hate it here.

Aegon saying that he will sail away to never being found, was straight up character assassination and I’m tired to pretend it wasn’t. When the ONLY reason he accepted becoming a King was to protect his FAMILY?! His children, his wife? His mother and brothers? Fuck the writers, ngl.

Alicent not crowning Helaena was absolutely disgusting, the Kingmaker Ser Criston Coke made the King and Alicent, the Queenmaker, made the Queen. (my Alicole agenda is showing 😭)

Some fellow greenies are way too comfortable saying that in the show, Aegon abuses Heleana like it’s a sport, I get not liking Aegon in the show but saying this as if they saw it happen? When Heleana is more than comfortable making fun of him? When Helaena doesn’t care about Aegon being near her? Yeah, no.

They also love to say, this isn’t the books, okay? Doesn’t stop the fact that I want a better character, I want a better Aegon, he’s the man of the house in the books, and in the show he’s pathetic. TGC deserves better.

But yeah, hopefully season 2 will be better even tho the damage is done.

[bohemian-nights]

I adore Matt playing Daemon, but honestly he deserves much better. Accepting the role in such trash show cause there was Paddy wasn't that good choice, cause it's not fair he's always gonna get the most uncomfortable scenes to film. He's brillant and professional so i know he'll be amazing, but this shit is not Fire and Blood and Emma will never be my Rhaenyra. It's them the reason why the character is basically ruined, cause no, Rhaenyra isn't supposed to be masculine, and isn't supposed to be soft with Alicent, but i know the real villain here is Ryan for choosing her with the purpose on turning this story to nothing but queerbaiting agenda. GRRM should have never allowed that. He should have fought to adapt HIS story. It was better having animated show, at least wouldn't have been ruined.

It is a real shame what they are doing with Daemon. Matt is a terrific actor so seeing him regulated to a sh*tty script. This goes for most of the actors because they can only work with what they are given.

I strongly dislike Miss Maegor, she’s an awful character, but the show version of her has deviated from book canon so for that I will fault Ryan.

As far as GRRM is concerned, he is here for a check at the end of the day. I don’t think he really cares that much as long as they stick to the overarching premise🤷🏽‍♀️

[meanqueens]

HOTD characters are so....toothless. Give them agency, give them pride, give them anger, give them ambition, give them passion, give them everything GOSH! I do believe that the young Rhaenyra had more spark than the old one but that's not because of Emma, it's the writing, like Rhaenyra lost her shine. I guess that's something that they are going to explore more next season during the Dance but I would have loved to see more of that. And I would have LOVED Alicent letting Viserys' body rot like in the book, for all the years of bitterness, abuse and neglect she had endured because of him. And why not murder him, that's what he deserve.

thank you for your ask!! just brainstorming, but perhaps it’s a similar situation as with the later GOT seasons: the writers are trying to fill in the blanks of what is essentially an outline, but they are not equipped to do so. perhaps the current HOTD team would be better suited to adapting a full novel rather than what is effectively a history book with conflicting narratives and a dash of actual characters. really i just want to see what went down in that writers’ room, like how did we get here? why did we decide to go the route that we went? grrm may have been involved, but this didn’t feel like a complete story of his. it didn’t feel like a complete story at all. and if we’re not here to tell a full story, then why are we here?

[andsalttheearthbehindyou]

November reading wrapup

hmmm pretty good month for quantity but hit or miss for quality, i either loved or hated almost all of these. 💆🏻‍♀️

1. the lover, marguerite duras — tumblr girl classic, ur fav web weaving posts almost definitely feature a snippet of this. like woah 😭 ok very timeless very vivid and real. I did cry.

2. icebreaker, hannah grace — this is EMBARASSINGGGGGG i was going to a hockey game and was like woah let me get into this mindset... into this world… THIS BOOK WAS MISLEADING i thought itd be equal parts hockey world ice skater world equal parts romance and no.. it was nothing of the sort... this was just tooooo porny like WAY too much, even for me. AND I USED TO WRITE SM- *gunshot*

3. throne of glass, sarah j mass — does anyone have any good fantasy series recs that arent this?? like this is what years without winds of winter will do to a woman. im settling for this subpar garbage. but i am gonna keep reading it bc what else do i have, george???

4. mickey7, edward ashton — been on my tbr since rob pattinson was announced to be the lead in this in the bong joon-ho movie… i feel like with the creatives behind it thisll end up being one of those rare bones and all situations where the adaptation is wayyyyy better than the book. but idk. book itself was whatever good concept but didnt even really go anywhere. i thought that i had guessed a twist lie 3 quarters of the way thru but there was no twist literally nothing happened. therefore MID

5. blood meridian, cormac mccarthy — the only other time i had like a visceral tummy churning reaction to a book like this was when i read theons chapters in a dance with dragons 😭😭😭 anyway i like the lack of quotation marks and i also find it easier to write without them SHOOT ME

6. death valley, melissa broder — im really endeared to broder as a writer because i feel like she can only do one thing really well and shes very self aware of that.. which i respect.. also what the protag is going thru here at the start of the book is something ive also gone thru and it felt very strangely accurate and bizarre as a real person reading about a fake person going thru it. and literally within the book the protag references how writers poorly portray their characters accurately 'going thru it' (i keep saying going thru it bcoz im trying not to spoil even tho no ones gonna read my recs ALTHO this one deserves to be read i think) so that was cray and meta but umm what im trying to say is.. melissa i wanted to go to ur book signing i literally had my day cleared in my planner for u. why did u have to cancel the event.

7. indelicacy, amina cain — public announcement i guess but hey girl @noumenongirl i think you would love this one i dont know why but the whole time i was reading i was just like woah she’d love this😭 i liked it a lot

8. the penelopiad, margaret atwood — this is what circe by madeline miller wanted and tried to be but failed tremendously at.....

9. crown of midnight, sarah j mass — was better than throne of glass in the beginning actually but then they halfway thru lost me again..

10. the assassins blade, sarah j mass — im just hate reading at this point like i dont have anything else to do. Celaena youll never be daenerys girl like stop

11. elvis and me, priscilla beaulieu presley — ohhhh…. :,(((( my fav celeb memoir yet i think.....

+ bonus — im gonna add this to my december list but im like 75% of the way with fourth wing rn, good fawking heavens i wishthat grrm could trademark copyright the concept of dragons like i dont think anyone should be allowed to write about DRAGONS only him. like mini spoilers for fourth wing SORRY but WHY DO THE DRAGONS SPEAK ENGLISH, WHY DO THEY EVEN SPEAK AT ALL....cringe. but better than throne of glass at least😭 but it doesnt take much to be better than throne of glass to be fair. OK reading wrapup over.

[ladymorghul]

Idk if I'm in the minority here, but I think that all the praise Condal & Co are getting is a bit... undeserved ? I mean, I'm not claiming that season 1 of HotD was a failure or anything because it definitely had its good sides, but still, what's with all the comparisons with GoT? Not to mention that these comparisons always serve just to stress how D&D were completely incapable in adapting the story and that HotD is far superior in almost every aspect. Honestly, even though I wasn't happy with everything in GoT, especially in season 7 and 8, I must admit that people tend to exaggerate when it comes to criticising that show. I didn't like some things even from the beginning, but generally speaking, it was mostly well adapted while they still had something to adapt (thank you, GRRM). Also, it's only fair to compare season 1 of HotD to season 1 of GoT. And the fact is that Condal & Co deserve even more criticism than D&D since they had the example of GoT and they saw what happens when you trade the quality of the story for visual spectacle, or when you shorten the season, or when you make the characters inconsistent... Despite all that, they have already made the same mistakes that were the main reasons why the quality of GoT (storywise) dropped significantly in the latter seasons. I do hope that season 2 will be better and that we won't get another episode 9, the prophecy, that Alicent will finally be ride or die for her kids and Daemyra no. 1 hater after B&C and that all Rh*enicent nonsense, real or imagined, will disappear, that the shortened season won't harm the story much..., etc. However, I'm not too hopeful and still believe that season 1 of HotD had far more flaws than season 1 of GoT. And if they continue that way, I'm not sure what to expect by the time season 4 airs.

i'm so sorry but thankfully i have not seen this opinion being popular? i think anyone who think s1 hotd was better than s1 got is clowning. storytelling, lightening, consistency... it just does not compare. also, some of hotd fame came from being a product of got. nothing in hotd s1 had any impact similar to daenerys targaryen bringing back the dragons

[jackoshadows]

Sorry to vent on your ask box lol but I get really angry and depressed sometimes at the state of asoiaf. It's not just that it had a terrible adaptation but also the author didn't finish the books and won't even let anyone finish for him or tell us the ending and it really doesn't deserve that because those characters are so great they deserve much better. I always feel like giving up on the series but I just love the main characters so much, they deserve the world. It's just really depressing that their only ending will be the show ending. Idk it feels like someone I loved died young or something? It's very sad

Vent away!

It really is sad that the only ending we will get for asoiaf is the one on the godforsaken show written by ultimate hacks Benioff and Weiss. They are all to blame - GRRM for not finishing this tale in nearly 30 years and D&D for being these talentless white men failing upwards, who wanted to be done with the show, refused to hire a diverse writer's room and were writing for the actors instead of the characters.

Imagine the readers who have been reading these books since they first began in the nineties? Imagine how long they have waited?

AFfC came out in 2005. The last Sansa chapter (published 17 years ago) is older than even book Sansa (13 years old). Jon Snow is still dead, Daenerys is still in Essos and hasn't even met Tyrion yet. Arya is still pottering around in Braavos.

To have an idea of the scale of the problem, GRRM has only written part I of his original trilogy!! There's still two entire parts left.

That's one of the other reasons for why I am not watching HOTD. Instead of completing the original story, he's busy with all his side projects. Watch as he now works on F&B part II or Dunk and Egg and all that, everything except try his very best to finish ASoIaF.

I am sticking around because I love these characters as well and am hoping to get to read how their stories really end in my lifetime. Not sure how long I am going to be sticking around though. If TWoW is not out in the next couple of years, I can see most of us moving on. Especially with how toxic this fandom is, throwing tantrums over fans celebrating characters with events.

Till then, I think our little corner of the asoiaf fandom is lovely and it's been nice to discuss the canon characters and their story arcs, with some supertalented folks in this fandom creating content 🤗. If we don't get GRRM's ending, then our ending for these characters will be the ending. That's how I will be dealing with it.

[fedonciadale]

Hello! I get really tired of non-asoiaf fans act like the series is just boobs and dragons and nihilism. I feel like they're wrongly judging the books for the show's flaws (and it seems to always be lotr stans for some reason? Like that series is amazing, why must they trash ours?) So I was wondering, what would you say are the true themes of the books? I don't think at all that Martin is a nihilist who enjoys miserable endings and hates love. Thank you.

Hi there!

As a LotR fan myself I feel called out. haha!

Well, jokes aside. I think that it is of course rubbish to judge a book by how it is done on television/in a movie. It should be obvious that D&D made ASOIAF to be about dragons, boobs and nihilism and that you can't judge the books by the adaptation.

There is one thing though where GRRM is certainly at a disadvantage - especially in regard to Tolkien. He himself said that he wanted to address some of the things he had problems with in LotR, the notorious quote about "Aragorn's tax policy" and therefore, sorry, not sorry, GRRM set the stage himself, the stage where he is compared with Tolkien.

And there is one thing you can say about Tolkien: His books might be shorter than ASOIAF but he finished them and with a satisfying ending as about everyone can agree on. Bittersweet in the best sense of the word.

So, GRRM has himself to blame for being compared to Tolkien. And as long as the books are unfinished, GRRM is going to fall short. It might well be that his ending is bittersweet in a good way, that it will be satisfying, that he will address the problem of resurrection and of everyday politics in a better way than Tolkien did. But he has yet to prove that!

I would actually argue that the whole character of the books is so different that any comparison is moot, but that is my opinion. And I would certainly not put them "against" each other. And in my experience LotR fans do not attack GoT? I mean experiences on tumblr can be very different, but apart from the occasional frustrated ASOIAF fan (and I'm one of them) who praises LotR they are not pitted against each other?

I actually happen to agree with you that GRRM is not a nihilist and you can argue in favour of that. You can quote that he himself said that he wants to write about the "human heart in conflict with itself" and he has already done that and done that very well. But as long as we don't have his ending (not an ending, but his ending) we can make and argument and even a solid argument but the ultimate proof is not to be had.

I think that every one of the main characters has a main important theme: Love and Duty for Jon, Mercy and Revenge for Arya, Selfishness and Altruism for Dany, Use and Abuse of Power for Sansa, Loyalty and Betrayal for Jaime and so on. And the way GRRM approaches that is not nihilistic, there is hope (like when Eddard said: What if we prevail?) but it's not as visible as in LotR. No flower crown on the head of a fallen statue of a king touched by a single ray of sunshine in GRRM's world. That does not make it better or worse. It makes it different.

But it also means that many people do not see it. Many people do not see that Ned's "The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword" is a parallel to Gandalf's: "Many who live deserve death and many who die deserves life? Can you give it to them? Then don't be so rash in condemning them to die" (quoting from memory here).

So, there is humanity and hope in ASOIAF: I think that all the people who were saved or spared by the Starks will have a severe impact on the story (not necessarily all of them good, because that would be very unlike GRRM: Good actions don't always have good consequences, but they have good consequences often enough that it makes a difference if people are good!). I think the Stark legacy of good rule will prevail but as for now we don't see that yet.

I mean the last book will be called "A dream of Spring" which should tell you all, but before GRRM does not finish the books, you can argue all you want. The ultimate proof that it is not a nihilistic grimdark novel nobody will want to read in fifty years is just not there. And that's on GRRM.

Sorry, not sorry. JRRT cannot be dethroned by a man who set out to write better and didn't accomplish the most basic thing of all - which is finishing his story, so that it can be judged as a whole. LotR is still one of the most read books in the world and it will continue to be read.

Just being "promising" is not enough to pass the exam.

And that he let D&D finish the story in such a frustrating way does not help his case. I mean it's not necessarily how GoT ended it is mostly how it was told, and season 7 and 8 were a waste of money.

So, I would say: O.k. GRRM I believe in you: I believe that ASOIAF is not just dragons and boobs and grimdark story telling:

Do me a favour and PROVE ME RIGHT!

Thanks for the ask!

[daenerys-targaryen-moved]

I think what bugs me most about the asoiaf fandom in general is that there is this moral hierarchy when it comes to House Stark. As if Ned Stark being honorable meant that the entire house is clean and pure and perfect when they’re not any better or worse than any other house. Stark stans have really bought into this mindset that House Stark is the purest house and that they’re not at fault for anything or they’re deserving of independence simply because they suffered, when plenty of other houses have suffered and don’t have their independence? It really does drive me up a wall and it’s partially why I have such a hard time finding people who love house Stark to be friends with. They make big talk about how Daenerys Targaryens are colonizers and completely bi-pass or just ignore the fact that the First Men and House Stark literally by definition colonized the Children of the Forest. They hunted them, they killed them, they forced them out of their homeland, they forced them to either change religions / faith or die. Meanwhile Daenerys herself doesn’t force people to leave their homelands, meanwhile Daenerys adapts to other cultures by learning their languages, their faith, wearing their clothes, following their practices and traditions. And Daenerys is called a colonizer? The Starks/ the North get a by pass for their blatant xenophobia towards the Children of the Forest and the Wildlings? They get a free-be because ‘They don’t trust outsiders”, which is literally an excuse for xenophobia? The Starklings get a pass from being descendants of colonizers, but Daenerys doesn’t?

I love the Starks, two of the Starklings are a part of my top 5 favorite characters, but I just hate how even in the big name fans in this fandom hold Daenerys/ House Targaryen to a different standard than the Starklings/House Stark and I just ask why? If the Starks aren’t to blame for their ancestors crimes, then why is Daenerys? If the Starks aren’t showing signs of madness for being harsh towards their enemies, finding strength in their sigils ect, then why is Daenerys? If the Starks aren’t destined to go mad due to one member of their house having ‘madness’, then why is Daenerys?

It’s just frustrating that House Stark and especially Stark stans think themselves morally superior to any other House when GRRM has actively written them to be ‘just as grey’ as everyone else, yet the fandom as a whole really just forgets that or turns a blind eye to it?

[thebeltanequeen]

The (Blurred? Nonexistent? Inconsequential?) Line Between Canon and Fanon: An Impromtu Essay by Me

I’m currently have an existential crisis. An absolute, balls to the walls, pull my hair out, stare at the walls wondering what the meaning of existence is, kind of existential crisis. Why, you may ask? Because the older I have gotten, the more Fanfiction I have read. That’s normal. Millions of other people read fanfic like me. Well, in the past few years, I have also realized that the more fanfiction I have read, the less shits I give about the actual canon of the media I love. I care less and less about what “actually” happened, and delve into fanon instead. It’s as if the two have SWITCHED ROLES in my brain. The canon is the lie, and the fanon is the truth. This used to not be the case though, so how did we get here? And why… why is this realization sending me into an absolute spiral of insanity? Why do I feel like I have been sucker punched in the jaw? Let me explain.

I’ve been reading and dabbling in writing my own fanfiction for over twelve years. It used to be an escape, a way to further delve into my latest obsessions and become consumed by them. I have this annoying habit of also picking ships that do NOT become endgame, so I’ve always sought out fanfiction as a balm for my shipper’s soul as well. I still read fanfiction as if my life depends on it… but now it’s at the expense of reading new books. Watching new media. When I do eventually dip my toes into a new fandom, I either reject it quickly or become consumed again and make a grab for fanfiction… but in the past few years, something in not only me, but in fandoms in general has shifted.

The difference between me now, and me back then is this… I used to uphold the canon as sacred. Untouchable. Set in stone. The only credible source for the media I consume. All of the fanfiction I read was just beautiful window dressing. A lovely past time to further increase my dopamine intake.

This is no longer the case.

Now, when I read and write fanfiction, it’s as if it is an act of protest. I am actively seeking to reform the narrative. It’s to “take back” the story, the characters, EVERYTHING, for myself. To make it anew. To make it perfect. I’m not alone either. I see you. I see all of you. Now more than ever, I see more and more of us doing this exact same thing.

THIS is why I am having an existential crisis. I have just realized that I will no longer be content with the canon. Ever. Even the canon of my favorite media. It’s not enough. It’s no longer enough. It won’t ever be enough again. Why? Because there will always be places where the canon is falliable. The authors of the canon, are falliable. As an author myself, this is at once an alarming yet powerful realization.

I went to college for creative writing. At the beginning of my academic career, I thought of fanfiction as a beautiful fairytale world. It was glorious, but it was other. Separate. Not as credible as canon. Had I read fanfiction better than the media it was based on before I entered college? Absolutely, but in my head it still didn’t matter because the canon was the word. The canon was the law. As a writer, I held the power of the author (and by extension the power of myself) as sacred. By the end of college, that began to change.

The more I was taught about writing, the more I came to realize that sometimes, authors are just straight up WRONG. Sometimes, there’s soooooo much potential… AND THEY JUST FUCK IT UP!!!!!!! The bones are incredible, but the canon is weak, the logic is lacking, the story makes no sense, the characters don’t reach their full potential and you know what? I’m tired. I’m tired of it. This is why fanon is canon’s salvation. Fanon makes canon look pathetic. But… if I accept the fanon as the reality, and make the canon the lie, does that still make it fanon? No. I don’t think it does. I think fanon has become something other. Something greater.

I have become disillusion by “published” or “credible” books. 95% of the novels I actually buy at the store today are garbage. Trash. Half written nonsense that only serves the purpose of paying people. I’m TIRED OF IT. I’ve become disillusioned by the “power” of the author. I have become disillusioned by canon. FUCK canon, quite frankly. Rip it apart. Dissect it. Take out it’s beating heart and transplant it into a new body. Give it the soul that the narrative was begging for. REVIVE IT. LET YOUR OWN IMAGINATION MAKE IT ANEW. Characters mean too much to people. Fiction means too much to people. Stories mean too much to people for anything less. Only then will you or I be satisfied.

Now, even an impromptu, unedited, gibberish essay is not complete without examples. I’ll start with one that you probably thought of while reading this. Game of Thrones. I think that two years ago, the ending of the most influential show of the entire decade, is where my subconscious began to shift in this direction. Now, I doubt my opionions about GoT are the same as yours, but you know what? It DOESN’T MATTER because FANON CAN FIX THE CANON. The stories that meant so much to millions can be fixed by accepting the fact that THE CANON ISN’T THE LAW! IT FUCKED UP!!!! CANON DOESN’T DESERVE TO SPEAK ANYMORE!!!! TAKE BACK THE STORY AND TRANSFORM IT INTO A VERSION TRULY WORTHY OF THE GLORIOUS BONES IT HAS!!!!!

We also can’t ignore the role that monetization plays in the media we consume. Why leave our fiction in the hands of just the big names? Why let money dictate what is real and not real? WHY SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRE STORYTELLING JUST BECAUSE IT WAS SOLD TO YOU AND THEREFORE IT’S “LEGIT CANON”??? FANFICTION IS FREE, AND THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PIECES OF WRITING I’VE EVER READ WERE WRITTEN BY FANFIC AUTHORS WHO DID IT FOR THE STORY. WHO DID IT FOR THE ART. WHO ACTUALLY DID IT JUSTICE. FUCK THE CONCEPT OF FANON AND CANON. THE STORY WE WANT IS ALL THAT MATTERS. GET MONEY OUT OF HERE.

Ahem. To avoid going on even more of a tangent, I’ll move on and give the example that triggered my existential crisis in the first place. Sailor Moon. To give some background, Sailor Moon is it for me. I have grown up with it. I’ve watched it my entire life. As a child, I ran around with my toy moon rod and desperately wanted to be Usagi. Ironically, I grew up to be quite a bit like her (but with Rei’s temper admittedly). It is my comfort show, my happiness. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry. I never tire of it. It makes my heart swell. I have never, nor will I ever, love any piece of media the way I love Sailor Moon. Flash forward to today, I watched Sailor Moon Eternal, the two new movie adaptations of the Dream arc in the manga (stick with me non-manga and anime lovers). I liked the films, but I was left with a deep, disatisfied yearning. I want back the feeling of complete bliss I experienced while watching the 90’s anime as a child. The problem with this? I’ll never get it back. I’ve just realized this. I’ll NEVER get it back. Why? Because it’s no longer the perfect version of Sailor Moon that it was to my young eyes. Crystal, while good, is also not the perfected version I seek in my adulthood, and Eternal has not scratched my insatiable itch. I am heartbroken because I’ve realized that Sailor Moon in its perfect form doesn’t exist anymore. If I held any canon sacred, it was this. But the story is flawed. The manga is flawed. The anime is flawed. It’s not infallible, as much as it truly, deeply hurts me to admit to the world and to myself. The only perfect version of Sailor Moon is the one in my heart. It’s the one I choose to piece together for myself with the building blocks that others who came before me have handed over.

Another, more recent example of falliable canon is The Grisha Verse. More specifically, the Shadow and Bone trilogy. I was brought in to the fandom by Ben Barnes’ depthless eyes and magnificent scruff. And you know what? I liked the story, but I stayed for Ben Barnes. I liked the Darkling so much that I bought the entire grisha verse books. It was a premature decision. I’ve only made it halfway through Storm and Seige, and you know what? I’m tired of the canon already. It’s not that great. The bones are there, but it could be SO. MUCH. MORE. I haven’t read the crow books yet, and by all accounts Leigh Bardugo has improved tremendously as a writer. Which incidentally proves my point. Authors are falliable. Ergo, the canon is falliable. I can’t help but think while I read these books, “Damn. I could write this better.” and you know what? I’ve read fanfics that HAVE written it better.

Am I saying this to trash Bardugo? Or even GRRM? (Yes I admit to trashing D&D but that’s beside the point ahem…). NO. I am NOT trashing the writers. I’M A WRITER. I GET IT. YOUR STORY IS YOUR BABY. I G E T I T . But I’ve realized, and what I think future authors will also have to realize, is that fiction doesn’t belong to anyone. As soon as it’s out the door, the fiction no longer belongs to the author. It belongs to us. The people. That’s what is beautiful about fanfiction. It’s not here for the money. It’s not here for the clout. It’s here for the fiction itself. Plain and simple. It belongs to no one and everyone.

In the past, I would have fought this. I would have wanted my work’s canon to be law. To be the word, the truth, the way etc. Now? I can’t be a hypocrite. I can’t be selfish. It isn’t about the author. It’s about the vision. It’s about the story, the narrative, the characters. It’s about art. And sometimes, the authors give birth to the idea (and they deserve credit for that without a doubt), but it’s also true that sometimes, someone else just writes it better. Someone else quite simply saw the vision, the story, the characters, more clearly than the author did. I make this vow now, as an author, to strive for the vision. If someone takes my vision and does it better than me, that only improves my perspective of my own story. It improves the world of fiction as a whole. It makes me better.

So, canon? Fuck the canon. Take back the story. Take back the characters. Take back the art. Fiction is ours. It belongs to us, and we can do with it what we please. Let’s strive for OUR OWN perfected version of the media we love. Canon doesn’t truly exist. The concept of Fanon doesn’t even exist anymore in the way we used to think of it. The author’s version of events is their own Fanon of the story. Canon is meaningless now. There is only the story that you accept in your own mind. There is only the story that I accept in my own mind, no matter how different it is from yours. There is only the art. There is only the limitless potential of countless people’s imaginations. Let’s continue to collaborate and celebrate beautiful stories together, in any conceivable way, over and over and over again, until the end of time.

Fin

[alinaastarkov]

It's very transparent how you acuse Sansa fans of flaws you possess. You call them shallow for focusing on Sansa's beauty, yet they're very critical of how her looks affect her narrative and atract predatory men towards her. They prefer focusing on her mental characteristics instead of her beauty. Meanwhile, you're desperate for everyone to perceive Arya as pretty, you have a whole tag about her beauty and think her tale is a "ugly ducking" one. The nerve of accusing others of being shallow...

*cracks knuckles* Okay bitch let’s go

Sansa stans, the ones I always speak of, are shallow because they only started liking Sansa because of her beauty and her ‘traditionally feminine’ interests, and because they think she is ‘hated’ by everyone else because of this, except, no. We don’t hate Sansa. If we dislike her, as I have said before, it’s not because she’s ‘traditionally feminine’ or ‘beautiful,’ it’s because she is horrible to her sister to the point that it affects her mental health for years, she refuses to acknowledge any of her bad behaviour and, more recently, because she’s poisoning a child and no do not come at me with why she’s not doing that i don’t wanna hear it 

Now, Stansas, such as yourself, are focused on her beauty, they just don’t admit it because *surprise* they know it will make them look shallow. It’s what attracted them to the character because these “mental characteristics” (not a real phrase) do not appear for a while. In the first books, she is not likeable. And that is the point. She is not supposed to be a hero. She was created for the purpose of sewing discord in the Stark family. That is a direct quote from GRRM himself so take it up with him. Those who aren’t fans will say she does not get much better, but there is some growth that makes her more dynamic and interesting. I do not care if they are “critical of how her looks affect her narrative and attract predatory men towards her” because I’ve rarely seen it and, if they are, that does not stop them from being fans because of her looks/ being obsessed with her beauty. In fact, it makes it more obvious because they are discussing specifically how her beauty affects the narrative. If that is not ‘being obsessed with her looks’ I don’t know what is. And all the “mental characteristics” (still not a phrase) they focus on are completely made up. They talk about her empathy (where?), her resilience (which is only achieved by her erasing the part she played in her family’s downfall), her compassion (again where? and at the same time they call Arya a psychopath. Arya. of all people) and whatever else which don’t exist in the books. So excuse me if I see Sansa stans touting abilities and traits that Sansa doesn’t have and see through that nonsense to find the real reason they’re such fans.

Now, there is a very specific reason we reiterate that Arya is pretty. It’s because there is a TON of canon evidence that says she is, but people still call her ugly, or ugly in comparison to her sister, or say that Jon or Gendry should be with Sansa because they deserve someone pretty, which wtf?? Suggesting that Arya isn’t pretty (which is wrong) means she doesn’t deserve love?? Does anyone else hear how fucked up that is?? We’re not desperate, we’re just sick of seeing Arya be disrespected because of her looks, especially when, in the books, she is pretty. Ned says so, Gendry says so, Lady Smallwood says so, Jon says so, are ya’ll just gonna let me keep listing people or should I stop? Also anon I did not know I had a whole tag for Arya’s beauty? Seems like someone has been stalking my blog and knows more about it than I do. 

You know what this ask tells me about you, anon?

I personally have never said her story is an ugly duckling one because, again, the books say that Arya has always been pretty. If people do think this, it’s because the ugly duckling story is not about beauty, it’s about the duckling discovering he was never a duck and that’s why he didn’t belong, and he finds his true family (or ‘pack’ if you will) amongst other swans who understand him. And this is where Arya’s story is headed. Breaking out of the stifling patriarchal society and making her own family, becoming her own kind of woman and leader, and feeling accepted.

All of Arya’s fans like her because she is strong, emotional, quick-witted, resilient, compassionate, kind, adaptable and so many other traits I can’t be bothered to name. We don’t care about her beauty, but we rightfully feel the need to defend her against gross claims of ugliness meaning she is not worthy. That’s a terrible attitude to have, and the ugly thing is just straight up not true. I’m sorry that our fave has more depth than yours, I’m sorry that you spend hours combing through blogs you hate just to send anons at them, I’m sorry your fandom has terrible priorities actually i’m not sorry it ain’t my problem why should i be sorry? But none of that is my fault. That’s just the way it is. Get better values and leave me alone i don’t know why i ask ya’ll never do. anyway come at me bitches i got nothing but time

[omgellendean]

I don’t get why the plot was necessary at all. They clearly had no issue cutting certain plots. Why not just choose to not have a teenage girl be tortured and sexually abused? Theon could have escaped on his own or Sansa &/or Jon could take back the north because Ramsey shouldn’t have it and has already done awful things. Why was the r*pe plot more important than Stoneheart or Aegon? If they didn’t like whatever was happening with Sansa in the Vale, they could have just given small glimpses or gave her a plot of marrying Harry if he existed or sweetrobin, but not consummating. Then, she’d have an army. Or they could just do anything other than the dumb r*pe plot. Jeyne deserves better in the books and isn’t even given a point of view and I don’t understand why that’s a story they needed to translate at all.

Gosh, this answer got ridiculously long. Guess I needed to talk about that dumb show, lol. And I probably need to preface all of this with a warning: I don't hate this storyline. For the most part, I’m annoyed about the way fandom leaves GRRM’s part in it and angry at how showrunners left actors to face the backlash from the viewers. I see problems in this story arc, of course, but Winterfell plot in both show and the book resonates with me strongly. I also don't think rape is an unacceptable element of the story or character motivation — it all depends on how it's written. Finally, English isn't my native language, and while I tried to be careful, there may be poorly worded passages or tone issues, and I'm sorry about that. 

I can think of several reasons for keeping this plot.

First of all, they didn't want to waste a perfectly good (in their eyes) storyline by replacing it completely with their own. It seems to me that the show writers were more or less aware of their limitations as authors, and that's why they used the book material as much as possible even when changing the plot or making it up on the go. For example, in the show, Arya is Tywin's cupbearer, which never happened in the books, but their dialogues are almost all lifted from the book text — mostly from Theon's chapters. When writers skipped or changed a storyline, they didn't just throw away stuff from it but reused it whenever they could, sometimes shoehorning characters into each other's arcs. That didn't always work perfectly, of course: say, with so many elements of different storylines given to Arya, her writing at times felt shallow and inconsistent. Or, remember how they rewrote Alys Karstark's replies for Sansa, and it started the "Sansa WaS MeAn to Jon" discourse? But in the end, it is easier to adapt a text you actually have and invent something based on it, rather than make something completely new, especially when you have a strict time limit.

Another obvious reason could be the fact that the show was coming to the end of its second act, and writers needed to start tying off their storylines and get rid of the characters they didn't need anymore, not add new ones. Writers also knew that Sansa isn't in the Vale for long — a fact they referenced several times, IIRC, — and I guess they knew she will come to Jon for help and join him in retaking Winterfell. 

The Vale never played a big role in the show, for better or worse. It was sidelined for two seasons, with literally no one caring about it. In season 4, this storyline had, like, four characters (one of them a kid with almost no lines) + two or three extras. To give Sansa a proper arc there, showrunners would have to basically make up the new location with a bunch of new characters completely from the scratch. All that just for one season, because then Sansa has to get to the Wall, and the Vale can fuck off again. I guess writers didn't see much sense in it, and tbh I can't blame them. They already had Dorne for this, anyway, and we all know how it went. 

Instead, they saw an opportunity to drastically cut off the excess storylines, while also giving Sansa a season arc, getting her and Theon to the next point in their stories and dealing with the Boltons.

At the same time, again, I never hated season 5. It is obviously just my opinion, but this storyline, leaning heavily on Martin's writing, felt stronger than some others, for which the book material was already running out. Despite its glaring (and constant for the show) problem with the handling of sexual abuse, Winterfell arc has pretty strong characterisations, high stakes for everyone involved, and some great scenes between characters. I will go into my grave saying that Sansa & Theon's scenes were underappreciated, but also, Roose and Ramsay? Ramsay and Theon? Hell, Ramsay and Sansa? That's some good battle of wills there, even though it was painful to watch. 

And the last reason I can see is that writers just never thought it would be a problem. They always were terribly tone-deaf and at best heavyhanded when dealing with difficult themes. Especially rape and sexual abuse. With Martin being not much better at this, GoT was full of gratuitous sexual violence so much that it became its trademark. One of season 4 episodes opens with women being brutally raped. Season 2 has several scenes of violence against sex-workers. Hell, the very first episode of the show has the rape of the teen girl in it!

And honestly, that's the main problem of season 5 — the thoughtlessness and lack of care. People quote GRRM's words, "Oddly, I never got pushback for that in the book because nobody cared about Jeyne Poole that much," as the call-out for the fandom, and maybe it is. But to me, it seems like a genuine surprise — and the reason why we got the story we got. They just never saw a problem with this and didn't expect the backlash.

And yes, the reasoning for all of it happening was really lame, and I agree with most of the critique. However, I must say that skipping the propper consistent buildup of the story and character motivations for the sake of !plot twists! has been a problem in this show since the start. It's not something that appeared only in season 5. GoT strongest suit was always its great multilayered characters and their clashes with each other. Logic, consistency and (quite ironically) realism always came second to this.

Maybe writers could've chosen the way you suggest, keeping Sansa's scenes minimal and just getting her to the Wall somehow behind the scenes, but honestly, is that really a better option than what she got? Not in Watsonian sense, as if she were a real teenager, but for Sansa as the character? Stoneheart and Aegon were secondary characters (and tbh I never liked Stoneheart and wish GRRM would just let Cat die), and that's why they were cut off, but Sansa is one of the main. Keeping her out of the story would make her a huge disservice, the same way it did Bran.

Taking away that storyline would also hurt Theon's characterisation. This post is already too long, so let's just say I disagree that it would be ok to just make him escape Ramsay. Aside from the fact that we would lose an amazing bond between Theon and Sansa, it would contradict his character journey and take away from the main themes of his story.

And maybe I am alone in this, but honestly, there are things that I really appreciate about this whole storyline. I just wish it were handled with greater care, both by GRRM and the showrunners.