#he barely grieved hodor

[lagosbratzdoll]

bran is my second favourite asoiaf starkling and the way that #those men butchered him keeps me up at night. they took my sweet boy and turned him into a monosyllabic, inhuman, immortal god-king. and the fact that his siblings don't care. meera doesn't care. nobody really grieves for the boy who wanted to be a knight. the boy who wanted to repay the liddle. the boy who was sick of frogs. the boy who loved his siblings and missed them. the boy who put aside his desires to learn and grow. the boy who tried his best to be the stark in winterfell. the boy who kept forgetting to mark the tree. nobody grieved for the boy.

[witheredoffherwitch]

Hate to say it but if the writers go for Aemond and Helaena then all the changes they're making actually do make sense. If Helaena doesn't just stay in the keep then her being a dreamer gets expanded to the point that she could take up the seer role--- I think...she actually already is. I've lost all hope with Daeron. We knew this was coming. If he doesn't appear in season 2 then he might just as well don't---because why do Hugh Hammer and Ulf the White get more than time to be fleshed out than Daeron? The only explanation is Helaena and or Aemond getting his plot. Helaena already has dreamfyre---a formidable dragon and she has the best reason out of all the Greens to be a part of the Dance. I believe it was Hess who said that they want the show to be more about the women so I can't exactly be mad if Helaena does get her due.

by god if they cut out aemondcito just because aemond would already have children---whom he will be avenging I--- it does makes sense but does not mean we have to like it. I do wonder how they'll include him though because the show might just end with aegon iii's coronation---but queen of harrenhal plot happens in 132 AC after that. I just don't know at this point kind of losing hope

Hi nonnie,

I need to ask this time: what are 'all' the changes? Helaena was turned into a dreamer, but much has been altered for Aemond, Alicent, Rhaenyra and Aegon. Some for the worse! NOTHING about Helaena suggests that she will be a warrior: 1. she is neuro-divergent, 2. she speaks in cryptic sentences and 3. she mostly draws some hints for the upcoming events. She is in fact the least developed character out of all TG members. And now, we hear these conflicting reports of Helaena being relegated to a recurring character while both Tom and Ewan are billed in the main cast. If that is the case, even the 'dreamer' part will be downplayed! These showrunners would barely give her any scenes of mourning - and most of her 'dreamer' aspect will be reduced to her giving cryptic warnings to Rhaenyra about their potential future. This is bad news for all Helaena fans, as it appears that she will be used as a plot device rather than a proper flushed out character. We know that Helaena's death is important for Rhaenyra's arc (think Hodor to Bran), so there's little chance they will change it; this means she won't be participating in the battle.

Furthermore, we still don't know if Daeron leaks are true or not. Even if they are, his part will not be given to Helaena. It may even go to Aegon but Helaena's story arc in the show does not appear to be anything more than a dreamer, and her sole purpose during 'The Dance' will likely be that of a grieving mother. Plus, the introduction sequence has already revealed that Aegon fathered Helaena's children - so this should not even be a point of discussion. Basically, no one outside of the shippers believes these theories, which from your comments makes it sound like you're one of them. If you're interested in a more detailed explanation, take a look at this post.

If Aemondcito is removed from the show, it's not because Aemond already had three illegitimate children; it's because they decided to end Alys' story with Aemond's death in the battle above God's Eye. If you want to engage with this topic further, then you need to provide more proof for 'all' of the changes you're discussing here.

That's all! 🤗

[adhoption]

GAME OF FINALES

There were many things to love about the finale:

Seriously, the aesthetic of that whole start, a broken city of ashes, the Targaryen banner slung over the ruins, that shot with the dragon wings, Dany’s zealous speech... nice. 

She’s been getting away with being a power-mad, egotistical, vengeful white saviour for years, killing anyone who dares to even disrespect her, and it’s been presented as WOO STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER and fans encouraged to believe the hype about her destiny to save the world and right to rule as much as she does. It’s nice that they did the twist of ah, actually this kind of person is bad news, it’s only a matter of time before they cross the line and start killing innocents. It was coming. 

But at the same time, it wasn’t really coming when it did? They didn’t lead up to it at all, and if anything she’d been more tamed since meeting Jon and friends than in the early days. They could have shown her arc going towards madness, not in the opposite direction. They could have shown her grieving, being consumed with a need for vengeance, rather than go from a speech about mercy to massacring children with no reason. They could have made them collateral damage as she tried to go for Cersei who was using them as human shields and Dany decided she didn’t care, or have the newly orphaned children try to defend their city and throw rocks or toy horses at Drogon and Dany burn them just seeing them as enemies. That would have been a way to cross the line, rather than winning the battle and then deciding to go for an impromptu barbecue.

What’s weird is that they spent the first half an hour of the episode explaining how it was actually inevitable and reminding us of the bad stuff she’d done before, like the characters were actively trying to justify the way the plot had turned in retrospect, like the opposite of foreshadowing, the opposite of build-up. These episodes were filmed at the same time, but it felt almost like this was a weekly show and the writers were responding to the criticism of last week’s. Outrage that Jon didn’t say goodbye to Ghost? Quick, reunite them and make him tickle him behind the ears (I was on my edge of my seat chanting Ghost Ghost Ghost the moment Jon went north again, I was so afraid they’d forget about him again). Laughter that a coffee cup was left on a table? Quick, tuck a plastic water bottle under a chair.

It’s also important that whenever the atrocity was mentioned it was explained that poor Dany lost her best friend and her dragon, whereas Cersei was just pure evil and hadn’t, say, lived her whole adult life under a prophesy that she would see her children dead and a young queen would come and destroy her, then watched all three of them die, seen her parents die, her whole world come crashing down, lurch from an abusive relationship to co-dependent incest and alcoholism and grief, and then simply decide to give no quarter to prisoners just like Dany burns them alive.

There’s a lot of things like Mad-Dany that which would have been nice and fitting if they weren’t rushed. Varys went from servant to traitor to bonfire in one poorly-lit, mumbled minute where you had to guess what was going on. Jamie went from ‘I’ve decided to stay with Brienne, the culmination of my years of character development’ to ‘actually no’ in a minute of her blubbing as out of character as him losing all moral fibre. This used to be a show of elaborate over-lapping plots, and characters who grew year-on-year. So yes, Dany-goes-bad, Jon-kills-her, Jon-has-to-go-back-to-Night’s-Watch, all nice and fitting ends to their stories. Nobody-sits-the-throne is a good resolution, symbolically melting it and starting afresh, electing somebody who wasn’t one of the main leaders. Gendry would have been nice, a fitting end to the story which began with the mystery around Robert’s bastards and Ned saving his life exactly like he did Jon, two children in danger as secret heirs to dynasties, and the irony of Dany having legitimised him only for him to usurp her as his father did hers. 

But not Bran. This isn’t Bran’s story. Bran’s war was the Great War. He spent years of character development journeying beyond the wall to meet his destiny, learning from and becoming the Three-Eyed Raven, clashing with the Night King, gaining the ability to see through time and space and weirwoods, gaining the ability to warg into direwolves and ravens and Hodors. But he has zero of the aptitudes needed to be a king. He is barely even human any more. He has no strength or compassion, no steel or charm.

Here are some particular points that I loved:

I loved the way how, after years of patiently watching Bran crawl around in the dark to gain the ability to go back in time and influence past events, or the power to take over the mind of a dragon, he didn’t just... use none of those powers in the pivotal moments of the last couple of seasons apart from to do a few seconds of raven-scouting and volunteer himself as bait. It was important after all that build-up that there would be a pay-off, that the gun Chekov’s character had spent the whole play building would actually be used.

So it was satisfying the way that after the Night King won and conquered Winterfell, walked into the Godswood and reached out to claim Bran, Bran touched the heart tree and his eyes went white before they were brutally turned blue. Then, after we watched the army of the dead sweep south with a terrible inevitability, the last stand of the living as Cersei realised her mistake and all the forces of King’s Landing were similarly overwhelmed, scorpions aimed at the White Walkers on dead dragons, confused Night King coming face-to-face with the reanimated Ser Gregor, Qyburn staring in fascination as the dead tear him apart, wights of Jon and Dany and Arya and Sansa and the Hound coming to claim their living enemies, the living finally fall and the Night King sits the Iron Throne, it fades to black... and we are in the weirwood with Bran, making a crucial change in the past, perhaps in that vision of the creation of the Night King, perhaps in another pivotal moment in the series. Then the next episode opens and the dead are bearing down on Winterfell again, but this time, something small has changed, making all the difference. This time, they won’t win.

Or perhaps it was revealed that Bran had gone back and become the Night King, and that was why he was able to control the dead, using his warging and Three-Eyed Raven powers, and then Jon or Arya had to kill him. Or perhaps he was able to warg into one of the dragons and fight the way that Jon and Dany riding them couldn’t. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I do remember how satisfying it was that the skills he’d learnt actually meant something. It would be disappointing if he only came back to sit making cryptic comments from the corner for two seasons, saying he was no longer Bran Stark and couldn’t be Lord of Winterfell because he was a bird now, only to then randomly be chosen as a king of a distant city on his first visit. 

It would then be especially weird if, after being named the first ever Stark king and uniting the north with the other six kingdoms as rightful king of both, the north then decide that they can follow Ned and Sansa as Starks but not him because as someone who was previously Lord of Winterfell and just left the north for the first time in his life they aren’t going to follow him as a southron king, whereas they will follow Sansa who grew up in King’s Landing.

In the same way I love the way that, after patiently watching Arya crawl around in the dark to learn how to see without eyes, learn how to wear other people’s faces and become them, she didn’t use any of those skills in the last two seasons, only stabbing with a dagger which she already knew how to do. It’s exciting watching Chekov’s character bludgen an intruder with a rolling pin, but a bit strange when you know the gun is hanging on the wall. 

After years of hearing her list recited, it was satisfying that she ended up crossing off the final name and killing the people she was supposed to kill, rather than just claiming the person that Jon and Dany and Bran and Beric were destined to kill and had built up their character arcs around, and making it look easy, thus derailing not only her own narrative arc but theirs as well.

Similar to Bran, it was also important that she had a fitting end that matched her character development to date, like how she spent the last episode building up motivation to avenge the innocents Dany had just burnt, and to protect Jon who she knew was rightfully the first in line but would never have the heart to move against Dany, so she bravely went to kill her herself, moving in darkness or wearing a face as a disguise, and was killed by Drogon, but not before taking him down at the same time, proving herself a dragonslayer and assassin worthy of legend, which finally gave Jon the heart he needed to do what he needed to do and kill Dany to avenge the little sister whose hair he used to ruffle and whose sentences he used to always finish, finishing her final act for her instead. 

Or did she go back to the riverlands and take up the mantle of Beric and the Hound who had saved her life, becoming the leader of the Sisterhood without Banners, a protector of the smallfolk and innocents everywhere against the tyranny of lords and soldiers whose atrocities she had witnessed at Harrenhall and The Twins and across the riverlands (and now at King’s Landing), riding around on her white horse and delivering the justice that Beric and Thoros used to give with their hanging ropes, or she and the Hand had given to the likes of Polliver, or that she had given to the Freys. There was that poignant scene where a little girl came to her with the names of men who had done unspeakable things to her village, and Arya calmly added the names to a list. There was that scene where she found Nymeria again, leading her pack of a hundred wolves around the riverlands, and joined forces with her to ensure that evil had refuge in the towns or in the trees, and turned to her and finally said “Yes. This is me.”

It was important that she had a satisfying, fitting end that matched her path and her background and her newly earned skills, like Bran, rather than say, him becoming king, or her randomly deciding to become a sailor having previously shown precisely zero inclination or aptitude for a life on the seas. It would have been especially ridiculous for her to start her nautical career by heading out with a single ship across the open ocean, which the books tell us has been tried before by whole fleets of ships and they have been torn apart by storms, and just doing it immediately with no real planning, in a jarring contrast with a scene where everyone else is talking about how they have no ships and are about to start building the sort of fleet that might be able to support her.

I loved the way the writers remembered they’d left Ellaria Sand to be kept alive in a dungeon beneath the Red Keep and had her released as leader of Dorne to take part in the council, rather than just replacing her with some randomer and not even acknowledging if she was dead or not.

I loved the way Brienne got over her rollercoaster emotional journey from stoic professional to sobbing teenager after one night of lovemaking and took the time to ensure Jaime’s memory was honoured correctly, such as by writing his biography with all the things he’d told her, and especially remembering to correct the single most important thing he’d told her (that he’d only killed the Mad King to save the whole city which was about to be blown up), and not just... leaving it written in his biography that he’d infamously broken his vows and killed the king and was known as Kingslayer since without providing any of the vital context, which she was one of the only people in the world who knew. It’s also a nice end to her character journey, which is based around her oath to protect Sansa and Arya, that she just leaves them both to take on huge risks and responsibility on her own and gets a new job wheeling Bran’s chair around.

‘Bran the Broken’ was definitely the best name they could come up with to describe a disabled character who definitely couldn’t have gone without an epithet (because all the others had to have one, like Cersei the Sassy and Joffrey the Juvenile Delinquent and Tommen the Timid and Dany the Deluded) and who had no other qualities, such as literal super-powers, which could have lent themselves to better ones. Bran the Raven had a ring to it.

I loved the way that the most teased and important plot twist, R+L=J, which they spent ages having characters explain to each other in hushed, important scenes, turned out to be important to the plot in any way. It would have been a bit disappointing if, say, only a handful of characters ever found out about it, or if the whole story could have happened in exactly the same way without it ever having been mentioned (beyond one episode where Jon rides a dragon and crashes it after achieving nothing).

[madaboutasoiaf]

For @canonaryastark: Favourite quote

I thought about this and quickly realised I didn’t want to pick just one favourite quote. There are so many that touch me, that really make me feel something, and I think I can do better justice to canon Arya by discussing favourites plural, rather than just the one quote. Instead I have chosen several quotes, or more correctly, several passages, because these passages are linked with themes in Arya’s story, and because they are really good.

The first is from when Arya is in Harrenhal, reeling from the news that Bran and Rickon might be dead, feeling powerless, and adrift. We have her thinking about Winterfell being burned, and essentially gone, and Arya’s doubts increasing now that her home is lost because home is what she has wanted so dearly.

If Winterfell is truly gone, is this my home now? Am I still Arya, or only Nan the serving girl, for forever and forever and forever?

She asks the question, and it is in the godswood at Harrenhal, when she prays to the old gods, that she receives the answer. Firstly:

...far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya’s skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy.

This alone is an answer. Arya has been feeling like a mouse, small and powerless, but she isn’t. She’s a Stark, a wolf, and in this moment she connects with Nymeria, the beginning of her warging into the direwolf, and the beginning of the bond that will ensure that no matter what she calls herself, no matter what is thrown at her, no matter what trial she endures, that identity cannot be taken from her.

Then to really hammer it home, the old gods speak to her.

“You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you.” “The wolf blood.” Arya remembered now. “I’ll be as strong as Robb. I said I would.” She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.

It is a reminder, but it’s also more than that. This moment is so powerful. It isn’t just about Arya’s identity, it’s about her connections. Her father is gone, but it is his voice she hears, and even with him being gone she is still a daughter of the north, still a Stark, still of Winterfell, wolf blooded, a direwolf and not just because it’s the sigil of her house. This moment empowers Arya, and it is a moment she will continue to draw strength from, that affirmation that she is a wolf, and that she can and will be strong in the face of adversity, even though she’s still only a little girl.

The passage continues, showing that the effects of her experience in the godswood stay with her.

That night she lay in her narrow bed upon the scratchy straw, listening to the voices of the living and the dead whisper and argue as she waited for the moon to rise. They were the only voices she trusted anymore. She could hear the sound of her own breath, and the wolves as well, a great pack of them now. They are closer than the one I heard in the godswood, she thought. They are calling to me.

Her connection to the wolves, to Nymeria will only get stronger from this point. She can hear them, a pack, calling to her, and it’s not in her head. Arya struggles with loneliness, and yearns for family, for a pack, and she has one with the wolves. This passage is the start of her realising this. Her bond with the direwolf, and reclaiming of her identity as a wolf, sets her on a course that will not only affect Arya herself, but impact Westeros even while Arya isn’t even on that continent.

Her warging of Nymeria doesn’t only provide her with a pack. It also serves to highlight Arya’s issues with loneliness, and feelings of abandonment.

That was the best part, the dreaming. She dreamed of wolves most every night. A great pack of wolves, with her at the head. She was bigger than any of them, stronger, swifter, faster. She could outrun horses and outfight lions. When she bared her teeth even men would run from her, her belly was never empty long, and her fur kept her warm even when the wind was blowing cold. And her brothers and sisters were with her, many and more of them, fierce and terrible and hers. They would never leave her.

That last part is telling. When Arya wargs into Nymeria she feels strong, no matter what position she herself is in. She also feels like she has family, a wolf family, brothers and sisters. Arya has lost family, lost her father, and then her mother, and she’s grieving for those losses and for the loss of Robb, and Bran and Rickon who she also believes to be dead. That loss affects her so much that she feels she has “a hole where her heart used to be” and the Kindly Man observes that she has “sad grey eyes that have seen too much.”

When she is told she must rid herself of all that makes her Arya, starting with her possessions, we see how much she still longs for her family, and misses them. We see that Needle, beyond being just a present given to her and a tool she might use to protect herself, represents a connection to her home, and her family, and all those she loves.

“It’s just a stupid sword,“ she said, aloud this time… … but it wasn’t. Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell’s grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan’s stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow’s smile.”

Needle is home, Needle is family, Needle is the North and its people, and it’s Jon Snow, the person Arya loves best. Arya can’t give that up, won’t give that up, and so she cannot give up Needle. Like Nymeria and the wolf pack, it is a tie to her identity, one she cannot give up, no matter how much the House of Black and White tries to make her.

“Who are you?” he would ask her every day. “No one,” she would answer, she who had been Arya of House Stark, Arya Underfoot, Arya Horseface. She had been Arry and Weasel too, and Squab and Salty, Nan the cupbearer, a grey mouse, a sheep, the ghost of Harrenhal…but not for true, not in her heart of hearts. In there she was Arya of Winterfell, the daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and Lady Catelyn, who had once had brothers named Robb and Bran and Rickon, a sister named Sansa, a direwolf called Nymeria, a half brother named Jon Snow. In there she was someone…but that was not the answer he wanted.”

In her heart of hearts she wants her family, she wants the North and she wants Jon. She’s only at the House of Black and White because the ship wouldn’t go to the Wall, it would only take her to Braavos. Arya is only there because somebody gave her an iron coin and she had nowhere else to go. But she’s still Arya, with the same morality, the same need for justice, and the same desire to go back to Winterfell that she had all the way back in book one.

The candles in the House of Black and White tell the truth, the candles that are designed to soothe people by reminding them of the things that would bring them comfort.

When you smell our candles burning, what does it make you think of, my child?” Winterfell, she might have said. I smell snow and smoke and pine needles. I smell the stables. I smell Hodor laughing, and Jon and Robb battling in the yard, and Sansa singing about some stupid lady fair. I smell the crypts where the stone kings sit, I smell hot bread baking, I smell the godswood. I smell my wolf, I smell her fur, almost as if she were still beside me. “I don’t smell anything,” she said, to see what he would say. “You lie,” he said, “but you may keep your secrets if you wish, Arya of House Stark.”

They might be secrets to the Kindly Man, but they are not secrets to me. These themes in Arya’s story leap off the page when I read her chapters, and they are so well-written, and filled with emotion, that I’m with Jon Snow in thinking please GRRM, You owe me this one little girl, safe, home, with those she longs for, and knowing she’s loved, and wanted, and worthy no matter how many doubts she has endured along the way.