#he's with cersei bc he wants to and bc he's a bit fucked up in the head a views cersei as his only comfort in this cruel world

[bookalicent]

another day another post of acting like jaime was cersei's victim and didn't have at least some autonomy of his actions towards her

[melrosing]

What do you think it would be like if both Jaime and Cersei were born male?

can see it being a fair bit less complicated than canon. like I think maybe they flat out dislike each other as brothers?? Cersei would finally have what she’s wanted in canon and that’s to be esteemed as Tywin’s true heir, but ends up with an inferiority complex anyway bc I can still see male Cersei being short tempered and short sighted, so that Tywin still berates him often and makes him feel like shit. the whole ‘Cersei is wildfire, Tywin is a glacier’ still applies here, and Tywin will still be like ‘I despair of my reckless son’ and Cers will still spend his life desperately trying and failing to measure up to his father’s expectations. and then Cers marries Lysa some way down the road and that’s a shitshow and so on and so on

Jaime meanwhile. I think Jaime would be pretty happy as a second son. he can study the sword to his heart’s content, hold out on marriage as long as it pleases him and do whatever he likes in the meantime. Tywin might still have expectations of his second son but I don’t think this version of Jaime would feel particularly beholden to them. and I think this version of Cers (Cerion? idk) has no reason to cling to Jaime as canon Cersei does, so they’re not close as twins, and Cerion would probably disregard him entirely excepttt that Jaime is obviously a far better swordsman and I think that gets to Cerion bc it feels like a slight to his own masculinity and role as heir - even if Jaime isn’t trying to compete with him there. I can see him putting Jaime down a lot in childhood to try and establish his own superiority, and Jaime just wanting nothing to do w his twin as soon as they’re old enough to move apart.

so in the end they each end up on their own paths - Cerion inherits the Rock and tries to be Tywin II but ends up being some kind of Joffrey Lite. Jaime just fucks around playing hedge knights or whatever to please himself before presumably marrying at some point. don’t know who tho, think he’d probably just end up in a romance with someone obscure just cos he can. I don’t think Tywin could force second son Jaime into any marriage he wasn’t keen on, so he’d probably give him license to pick a ‘suitable girl’ and that’d be that. so yeah Jaime is fine in this AU and Cersei is Cersei

[atopvisenyashill]

Thoughts on the Alysanne is Maegor's daughter AU? I feel like it has some interesting potential, and it vastly recontextualizes different parts of Jaehaehae (I do not like him sjsjsjs) and Alysanne's relationship (such as Jaehaehae's treatment of their daughters) but I wanna hear what you think about it!

I’ve touched on this a bit before but since you actually want to hear my thoughts, allow me to present to you my Jaehaerys Is The Goddamn Worst, And Alysanne Annoys Me Too: An Essay lmao but my answer is basically “yeah all of what you just said.”

I think it makes Alysanne much more palatable (to me) as a character because as she stands, she just fixates on forcing her daughters through these fucked up marriages at too young an age bc it traumatized her to be married and pregnant at 15 too but she’d never admit that being a willing participant in her own kidnapping by her brother-husband was the single worst thing that ever happened to her, and because Alysanne doesn’t want to admit it (and Jaehaerys would never see it as wrong or a mistake) F&B really shies away from delving into the fact that Alysanne is as deranged of a mother as Cersei is. So as she stands, she’s very flat to me because she’s presented very flatly and inconsistently. She’s so in love with Jaehaerys, she’s maritally raped by Jaehaerys, she’s a loving and doting mother, she forces her daughters into marriages when they’re the same too young age she was, she accuses her teenage girls of being scheming whores then gets angry when her husband accuses their teenage girls of being scheming whores, and worst of all we are just told “Maegelle tells them to make up so they do” so we don’t know why Alysanne gets over all of this. What is the point of riding a dragon when you never use that dragon to protect your daughters from unwanted teen marriages? We’re just not given a good enough justification for why her behavior is so weird and frustrating towards her daughters.

Make her Maegor’s daughter though…most of her behavior as an adult makes more sense. Like a worse version of Rhaenyra’s childhood almost - a father desperate for a son, but lowkey obsessed with his daughter, who makes all his hang ups about his parents the problems of every woman around him, except Maegor is out here blood sacrificing and torturing and starting wars and forcing babies on wives he discards quickly and brutally. Then here comes Jaehaerys on a white horse green dragon to save her from the horror her life has become, and he loves her so much he runs away with her even though Alyssa says they shouldn’t marry because people won’t like it. And they have beautiful children, and a beautiful marriage, and build a beautiful kingdom.

Then her pregnancies start getting dangerous. Gaemon, then Valerion, die. Alysanne thinks of the shriveled up mutants she called brothers, if Maegor’s taint has passed to her. Her perfect husband ignores her no, and forces Gael on her. Alysanne remembers that he said nothing to Rogar when Alyssa died, merely wept. Then her daughters start to die. Daella, Alyssa, Viserra, all within a few years. Then Jaehaerys makes Saera watch as he murders her boyfriend, calls her a whore, and says Alysanne cannot follow Saera to Lys. Alysanne thinks of Maegor torturing the Harroways over Alys’ presumed infidelity. Jaehaerys says he’s sorry, and her daughter badgers her into forgiving him, and she remembers how she helped Jaehaerys badger Alyssa into forgiving Rogar. Not two years later, Jaehaerys passes over Rhaenys. Alysanne thinks of how she was never enough for her father, how she felt so superior to Rhaena banished to Dragonstone and resented by Aerea, yet there she is dragging Gael away from court because she can’t stand to be with Jaehaerys. How her father was surrounded by dead women and dead babies and how Jaehaerys is surrounded by his own dead daughters, but surely she did the right thing, surely Maegor was worse, surely the realm is better off? Is he right to pass over Rhaenys? Is she enabling a man just as monstrous as her father? She will never decide, because Maegelle will guilt her about keeping Gael isolated at Dragonstone, and Alysanne will do as she’s told, just like Rhaena, and Alyssa, and Jeyne, Elinor, Ceryse, Alys, and Tyanna, just like every one of her daughters.

I do get why Alysanne is Alyssa & Aenys’ and not Maegor’s. The weird Targ babies, the line not descending from Visenya, Jaehaerys and Alysanne being held up as the perfect Targaryen couple specifically because they are brother and sister and dragon riders. I do even think canon Alysanne is likely traumatized by her time as a hostage on Dragonstone, and the ensuing war, and the trauma bond that caused with Jaehaerys, and it makes her idolize Jaehaerys, and then he isolates her at Dragonstone so he can swiftly and safely marry, groom, and knock her up. It’s not like,,,, a fun time, and it’s enough to make anyone crazy and weird about their daughters, but I think having her father be Maegor makes Alysanne herself much deeper because it gives her, as the most beloved Targaryen queen, a blood tie to the most hated Targaryen king, and a marriage to the most beloved Targaryen king. It fits better with a lot of the themes of the main series (again, imo) - forcing the spotlight on the outsiders to see how the affect the story from behind the scenes. The fall of Aegon’s sons, and The Long Reign, not told from the PoV or to serve the PoV of any of the kings or princes, but of the queen that tied them all together.

[houseofpendragons]

My Boyfriends Predicts each Game of Thrones Season Finale pt.3

A/N: My man get back from his cruise tomorrowww!!! Then it’s on to season 4! Also he told his his dads favorite episode is the red wedding 😭😭😭 my baby don’t know what that is and was like “yeah I can’t wait to watch that episode then” 🤦‍♀️

- Catelyn will stay prisoner for a little while longer until Robb finds out the Kingslayer is back in custody and…idk

- Robb is gonna go talk to what’s his face (Walder Frey) and get the other half of his army and march on Lannister Land [ohhhhh😬; if only that’s how this show worked]

- Jon is either gonna link up with his buddies and escape or march on the wall and be like “I’m free now”[He said if I was him I wouldn’t want to be any part of that march between five different people]

- Sansa might go back and hang out with her old lady friend at some point, he thinks she also want to get the fuck out of there. But isn’t she about to be betrothed to what’s-his-face? (Loras). Sansa will either do that or the queen will Marry Loras and maybe she’ll go with little finger. Who’s this bitch gettin married to?🤔 [Lmao kinda but we take the long route😂]

- Arya will get dropped at Riverrun until her mom and Robb come to pick her up (probably get bullied a bit along the way) [baby have you learned nothing smh 🤦‍♀️ ]

- Jamie, things are starting to look up for him. That guy might return Jamie for money. And he thinks someone’s gonna try to rape Brienne again (she’s gonna beat the shit out of them) [I don’t care what anyone as to say to me, I will die on the Jamie/Brienne ship]

- Cersei is probably gonna have Ser Loras killed that way she doesn’t have to marry him. [only in her dreams;for now🔥]

- Joffrey is gonna go, closer, like more and more insane. But at the same time he’s going to be controlled by his new wife. Joffrey is, uh…let’s see…idk

- Margaery is doing really good. She manipulating Joffrey real good with that crossbow scene 😏 you know you like to kill people 💀

- Tywin is gonna bonk his two kids on the head when they don’t marry the people they’re supposed to fuck…i mean marry. And he’s going to assume the more political side of the Kings job, likes he’s just going to be doing the kings political shit

- Tyrion, I think bro is actually going to like fumble to kingdoms bag. Like he’s gonna drop a bag of money in the street and make some poor kid rich. He’s not gonna marry Sansa. He’s gonna be like no dad, I’m gonna marry this woman

- Loras should pick correctly🤦 careful who you pick [😂😂😂]

- And the old lady (Olenna) lit [Same, she my fav💅]

- Dany is coming back with a vengeance. She’s got an army, three dragons, and she’s gaining army’s as she conquers city’s. So, yeah… she’s winning in this game of chess [from a certain standpoint I suppose]

- Sam, bro might get fucking murdered. He might find Jon and be like “Buddy?!” And Jon gonna be like fuck they’re gonna make me kill him… [I swear to god this boy is always thinking Sam is going to die, like let that man live in as much peace as he can find]

Add on after episode 6 bc I forgot…🫢

- Bran is gonna go to the wall and be like 😱😱where’s Jon?!?! But Jon’s gonna be out there with the bad guys, doing bad guy things like climbing the wall. And Brans gonna grow up and be big boy and control his wolf through his eyeballs… in his wheelchair ( someone’s gonna get that man a wheelchair) [he not wrong about the wheelchair]

- Theon, bro’s gonna die 💀 though he deserves it [Nah not death, though I’d argue what he went through might have been worse…]

Afterthoughts:

Shit is crazyyyyy but good

Same as alwayssss…Dany is a Goddess 👑 and Joffrey is a Joke 🃏

[osarina]

🧛/🐉

I tried to message you my thoughts on the finale, but realized a) you got those exclusive DMs (good for you, that is very wise), and b) I didn’t know if you had seen it yet. I’m glad to hear you have!!

At first, I was soooo upset because HEY THERE HAS BEEN NO ACTION FOR THE PAST 3/4 EPISODES!!! COME ON HOTD ‼️‼️ After listening to some of the audiobook, I think they kinda made the right move ONLY about not ending the season with (spoilers for tv onlies) Jace’s death. Considering the first season ended on Luke’s, I feel like it would have felt brutal/repetitive if this one ended with Jace’s.

But their pacing… my god, it needs some work. The first 4 episodes (maybe my mind is lying to me, but I remember loooving through episode 4, even if that one took my fav character from me 😔) actually felt like stuff was happening. 5 was the somewhat calm after the storm, and then I kept wanting the series to return to its bread and butter: dragons. I’m prolly forgetting good things in other episodes, but Daemon’s dream sequences reeeeally started to get on my nerves lol

Jace really grew on me in the finale tbh. Seeing all of team black’s dragon riders made me realize how hard Jace is trying to get along with them lol. Too bad I found out what happens to him in the book right after when I listened to the audiobook rip

Ohhhh my god. About that asoiaf thing… I love the idea of him having a son who was raised to hate him ahhhh that’s so cool!! And soooo like Fyodor

If he had a daughter, I think it would shatter me if a similar thing with Cersei happened to him. Like, he loved his children more than anything, but maybe Fyodor’s daughter (who’s actually his) was sent away by Fyodor — maybe for a marriage, maybe it was actual love similar to Myrcella and whatshisname — and then when he tried to retrieve her, she was murdered. Like… girldadzai will ALWAYS be famous ‼️‼️

(And then in her last moments, maybe she tells Dazai that she always knew he was her dad. 🫠🫠)

This was very wild and all over the place, but I’m glad to hear you’re doing better!!!

HOTD NONNIE MY DMS ARE CURRENTLY OPEN altho they're not gonna stay open for long bc idk why but i get a lot of spam dms WEEPS

omgg. ... hotd nonnie i totally think the opposite. like as glad as i am that we're getting more of jace, i do wish the second season had ended on his death because i would have liked to see the parallel/immediate comparison of rhaenyra's reaction to luke's death at the beginning of season 2 and then jace at the beginning of season 3 because iirc, jace's death is what really leads to "rhaenyra the cruel" and i thought it wouldve been cool to have it in direct perspective w the deaths in the season finales and the changes in her behavior in the first few episodes of each new season

yo genuinely i am not happy with what they're doing with this show like ive tried to be patient but holy fuck the entire harrenhal plotline was killing me and a lot of it felt very repetitive to me. i was so disappointed that they cut the battle of the burning mill only to have ONE major battle this season. i know that they were confirmed for a fourth season but i have no idea how they're gonna incorporate everything into two seasons now .. especialyl with this whole new plotline with alicent giving up king's landing ?? idk i have to reread the books but i feel like they fucked up the timeline with that but in short i am not happy with this season

i adore jace </3 he's one of my favorites - he would have made such a good king if given the chance

UGHHHHHHHH NOT FYODOR SENDING HER AWAY FOR A BETROTHAL no because now im weeping bc i imagine maybe they were twins - a girl and boy, and maybe the girl was hesitant to hate dazai in the way fyodor wanted her too. even kind of reaches out to him a bit but then he sends her away. while the son is kept close because he's followed directly in fyodor's footsteps </3

[dulcewrites]

The saddest bit about reader is that she's likely more like Alicent than Elia or Cersei in that both Elia and Cersei had brothers who would casually kingslay if they had tears in their eyes.

Like, Elia was strong as fuck. There isn't any doubt she was, she had to convince her family that she was at least content in her marriage because Oberyn would have 100% murdered both Aerys's racist ass and Rhaegar's dumbass. Doran would have tried for diplomacy to get her and her kids back if not start a war for her.

Cersei couldn't tell Jaime shit about Robert did to her because Robert would be dead. Tywin, unless he was hit with Viserys level of delusion, went to war for (the throne tbh) her and her bastard kids.

The reader comes from a powerful and influential house but has no support in that same way. Her mother and Alicent's are pretty much on par in terms of support (and Alicent's died) and their father's are not much help aside from getting them to be birthing machines for a Targaryen.

The loyalty they have is either on account of desire or unrequited love (Criston-Quinton/Aegon) or through the children they obviously love and want to protect but end up being unintended shields in conflicts (I feel like Daella will end up standing up for Reader in the same way Aegon did for Alicent). The only familial support they have is through the children that also tie them to the environment they are in. They don't have family to truly turn to as they are the sacrificial lamb into the dragons jaws for power.

(I don't think Larys has any desire for Alicent beyond getting enjoyment out of using her desperation to hurt her)

I love love love this ask because I went back and forth on deciding of if I wanted reader to have siblings or a sibling. If she did have sibling, like you said it probably would’ve been an Alicent situation where they are older and have their own lives or younger to the point where she would feel bad burdening them. I wish we would have gotten more information on Alicent’s relationship with her brother because based on the first ep it seems like they close. Or close enough she worried about him during the tourney. Her family says they are behind her but that’s AFTER she becomes queen and makes her allegiance clear with the green dress. The back her as long as the possibility of their blood being on the throne stands

If I did I probably would’ve made them much younger than her (reader has the strongest eldest daughter energy it’s sad lmao).

But I kind of have a headcanon in my head that reader’s parents had trouble conceiving, so she’s their only kid. It only adds to the pressure her mother puts on her. When her parents pass, whatever is in their name is hers. She’s their legacy.

Which moves into how reader’s kids are hers. I think she holds on very tight bc they will be in history books at Targaryens, despite the fact that she’s the one that had them and fought for them. I think that eats her up a lot. They will be targaryen dragon riders and probably expected to marry in the family and basically dilute her (and honestly Alicent’s “impure” blood”). And this ask reminded me about larys monologue at the end of ep 6.

“"What are children, but a weakness? A folly? A futility? Through them you imagine you cheat the great darkness of its victory. You will persist forever in some form or another. As if they will keep you from the dust. But for them you surrender what you should not. You may know what is the right thing to be done, but love stays the hand. Love is a downfall. Best to make your way through life unencumbered if you ask me”

I think Alicent and reader (rightly or wrongly) see their kids as extensions of them bc that’s all they have.

On the quinton/Aegon front, another fear of reader’s is that if she were to give into her desires, the loyalty would be gone. That they have gotten what they wanted and there is no need to help anymore. She sort of dangles herself as carrot a lot of the time bc she doesn’t know another way to gain power. She’s been told since she was young that being pretty and nice goes a long way with men.

The way otto tells Alicent “you’re the most comely girl in court, why must you ruin yourself” when talking about her clearly anxiety driven nail picking… is the way reader’s mother tells her she’s prettier than the other girls that Alicent could marry to Aemond, but it’s her tense disposition that isn’t cute. Not even seeing reader’s tense attitude… is bc of HER. Like her mother tells not to be so self deprecating while also demeaning her 💀

[rottentiger-art]

Do you think the eventual Daemyra sex scene will ne explicit? (I refuse to believe there won't be one included in the show). Considering how GoT was explicit I'd hope so??? I might not survive cut to black 😭😂

I believe so, at least as explicit as romantic couples are allowed to be on the show. And I'm taking reference from GoT so I may be wrong in some things too bc my last rewatch was a year ago I think, and I do have a shitty memory, but this is why I believe so. At least the beach sex scene.

As we've seen in Game Of Thrones, romantic couples (like Jonerys or Robb and Talia) are not shown the same way a random character and a whore are shown, because they want us to know they love each other, so we never watch them fucking, we watch them making love, we don't hear loud moans and skin slapping and feel some kind of whiplash from the sudden of the scen, instead they build it up, we see them stare at each other, kissing lovingly and all in all there's a sense of intimacy. And if they were fucking, we only see the aftermath. They used this to show us the development of Dany and Drogo's relationship, at first when he used to rape her the scene was raw and explicit and shocking. The next sex scene they shared (I think) starts abruptly too, but then it comes to a halt when Dany tells him she wants to look into his eyes this time ("love comes at the eyes')and it slows down. That was the closest we've seen to them make love, and after that their next scene in bed it's the aftermath. I do not think they were in love for real, but the show wanted to potray them as romantic, so they never had a typical GoT some sex scene again. There's also Jaime and Cersei, who claimed to be in love, but the show didn't want us to see them that way (the first one was for the shock value, but they turned one of their lovemaking scenes from the book into a rape scene), their relationship was villianized until the scene from Cersei's pov (the "I love my brother, I choose my lover" scene), their next scenes were never shown complete, or we see aftermath/morning after (actually their last love scene was very sweet, when Cersei is already Queen and she let's the maid see Jaime in her bed) but even when they were agressive ot mad at each other and stuff the sex was never shown the same way.

Since from the very first ep the show seems to want the audience to see daemyra in a romantic light, and we've already had some peeks at the beach sex scene in the show's trailer, I think we'll get an scene similar to jonerys' boat sex, I don't think they'll be so cruel to just give us a cut to black, I'm sure we'll get to see some sweet lovemaking, something in the middle of a sex scene and an after sex scene😌

And hopefully it's not the only scene we'll get of them! (I really wouldn't mind seeing them doing it raw and rough tbh lol) if the leaks are true, we may see one before they're married (very much hope so)

And yea, I could've just said yes, but I wanted to ramble a bit lol

[angelhummel]

I’m watching the new Cinderella movie jesus take the wheel

why bother with rhythm nation when glee already did it better. you could never

why bother with somebody to love when glee and ella enchanted and happy feet did it better

the costumes are ugly as fuck. it looks like when you’re a kid and you’re dressing your lil barbies up to go to a party and there’s no cohesion you’ve just got 50 different bright colorful dresses and you’re slapping em on willy nilly

and of course ella’s running around town in the modern day equivalent of just her bra but they also have power tools so i don’t think they’re going for historical accuracy 

i think i’ve genuinely laughed twice. once was just with idina’s line delivery and then when the prince said “we’ll grow old, into our forties” 

also if they’re broke why does ella have so much fabric and bling for her dresses

camila sounds fucking awful lmao. i don’t mind a lil vocal fry if it’s in the moment and adds to the performance but if it’s every fucking line then i think you just can’t sing. and she’s moving her mouth way too much for the lack of energy in the audio

literally everything is so fucking insincere. every single line is either #GirlBoss or anti girl boss to prove a point about how girl bossness is truly the way to go

and don’t worry we got something about women give birth and run households so they can run businesses or whatever. pussy power babe

the stepmother threw a tiny bit of ink on ella’s dress to ruin it. so anticlimactic. ella could’ve put a flower over it, turned it around, worn it inside out, worn a shawl, who gives a shit. the scene in the cartoon is so dramatic no one will ever touch it

i want to step on these cgi mice

Billy’s outfit is my favorite so far. The bar is on the ground but I like it

wait the mice talk and have boy voices but also she thinks the mice are girls. why. what is the purpose of that. what shallow commentary on gender does “i thought mice are girls and rats are boys” make. UPDATE: the mice sound like just squeaks to her so she can’t hear them. ok.

also am i dumb or was missy elliott supposed to be in this. i guess she got out while she still had a chance

the costumes at the ball are a little nicer. i love some sparkly ball gowns

oh okay a third laugh when the cellist smashed her cello then immediately pulled out a second identical cello and the crowd gasped

the prince has a little sister that looks like kit kittredge cersei lannister girlboss

and of course the queen girlboss has like starving peasants and income inequality in the kingdom but her making a statement is wanting to be equal with her king. like she was measuring throne sizes. that’s her arc

she commented on the king’s taller throne and i thought it would be funny if they zoomed out and it was sitting up on books to make him taller. but they didn’t do that he just had a bigger throne made i guess 

they had like a greek chorus moment but it was just in one scene so far and really awkward

we’ve cut away from ella and the prince like five times to focus on stupid human mice nonsense for what. was it in james cordon’s contract that he had to have a minimum amount of screen time or he wouldnt do it

the songs aren’t great but they’re my favorite part cause it means i dont have to hear this awful dialogue 

also like they really copied miss evie descendants bc she invented being a girlboss princess fashion designer dress maker. get some new material, champ

also also copied into the woods cinderella “my father’s house was a nightmare. yours was a dream. now i want something in between” like why even bother

of course the stepmother has to have some sympathetic backstory. bc women can’t be villains or capable of bad things they can only be jaded girlbosses who were gaslit and gatekept and now are sad

okay the stepmother’s original song was probably my favorite. it sounded like something i’ve heard before but oh well it was nice

is pierce gonna sing sos or what

oh he did sing it was kind of funny kind of ... but i liked that the horse was freaking out. nice callback to mamma mia. not that there was a horse in that but everyone was spooked 

this costume person must’ve hated idina bc that final outfit was offensive

Umm okay so that was the movie. Wasn’t it something. Idk I love “so bad it’s good” films but this was just bad. Like it’s not even fun to watch as a spectacle like when you wanna watch something just to make fun of it. It was just bleh

I guess I recommend if you’re curious or if you just wanna shit on it. But also I recommend Disney’s cartoon Cinderella, Brandy’s Cinderella, Into The Woods, Ella Enchanted, Ever After, and Hilary Duff in A Cinderella Story. This was not needed in the least 😬😬

UPDATE: So several different people are like “people are taking it too seriously it’s not supposed to be oscar worthy it’s supposed to be fun” like sis i get it but it’s not fun either 😐 there are plenty of good bad movies out there to put on and have a blast but this ain’t it. this isn’t mamma mia this is mamma mia 2

[weirwoodking]

who do you think will be on the throne at the end? is there a chance it will be a woman? do you agree with the theory that bran will be king in the north bc he symbolizes winterfell? idk if i see dany on the throne bc i don't feel like she belongs in westeros, i think she would be better off with a throne on the other side of the narrow sea but i really don't know what i'm saying

It’s very hard to make predictions for ADOS, because we don’t have TWOW yet. So much can change about the story and the characters in one book, thematically and narratively. Think of how much the plot was influenced by just that final Bran chapter in ADWD. 

But, here I go anyway.

My short answer is: no one. (And no, I don’t mean Arya)

Let’s get into it.

Part 1: How the Show Tainted Everyone’s Brains

Obviously, a lot of people care about the Iron Throne plot. Sometimes too much. I do believe that this is mostly because of how much the HBO show changed everything about the story to make the Iron Throne seem like it was more important than anything else. Like promotional posters of all the actors each sitting on the throne, the name of the series itself being changed to “Game of Thrones”, actors getting asked in every interview “who do you think should get the Iron Throne?” as if it’s the last cupcake at a birthday party that everyone’s fighting over, the final episode was titled “The Iron Throne”. The marketing for everything was “it’s the fight for the Throne!” up through the eighth season. It made the object itself become a huge pop culture symbol.

It almost felt like the show was trying to make it seem like the goal of the Night King (a character not in the books) was to sit on the Iron Throne! The show portrayed it as if the Others were just a little distraction that needed to be dealt with so the characters could get back to arguing over the Porcupine Chair. However, in ASOIAF, it’s the exact opposite. The Porcupine Chair is what’s distracting the characters from the real conflict, the Others.

It’s almost comical how that has somewhat transferred over into the fandom, the “game of thrones” is what’s keeping everyone from focusing on what really matters, the “song of ice and fire”.

Part 2: GRRM’s Quote

It wasn't easy for me. I didn't want to give away my books. Every character has a different end. I told them who would be on the Iron Throne, and I told them some big twists like Hodor and "hold the door", and Stannis' decision to burn his daughter. We didn't get to everybody by any means.

-George R.R. Martin

So, he “told them who would be on the Iron Throne”. Something important about this quote is that he doesn’t say who. And, of course, the Iron Throne gets destroyed at the end of the show anyway. Show!Bran doesn’t really “end up on the Iron Throne”. Show!Dany does. George never said that who “ends up” on it in the books is who ends up on it in the show. He’s said that the Shireen thing and the Hodor thing will “happen very differently” in the books anyway. And, of course, another major part of that quote is “every character has a different end”.

I don’t think that who sits the Iron Throne last is necessarily going to be the ruler of Westeros at the end. For example, Cersei (or Aegon) may be the last person to sit the Iron Throne. Or even Euron (however, even though his goal is to rule post-apocalyptic Westeros as a god from the Iron Throne, I don’t think he’ll actually get there). If wildfire is hot enough to melt iron, I could see the throne being destroyed during whatever fiery shenanigans go down with Cersei and JonCon in TWOW. I think it would be fitting for the fight over the throne to end in the next book. ‘Cause the winds of winter are coming, baby, and it’s gonna be time to start dreaming of spring.

Part 3: The Weirwood King

The idea/theory of Bran becoming King has been around for a long time, long before the HBO show even started airing. This is because of the Celtic myth of King Brân the Blessed, whose name means “Blessed Crow” or “Blessed Raven” in Welsh. Other than the obvious connection with the name, Brân the Blessed’s story involves a magic cauldron that can bring the dead back to life. 

In the myth, Brân’s head is cut off and continues talking (think of how Bran’s most powerful aspect is the magical powers of his mind), because in Celtic mythology the head is believed to be where the soul is.

Celts had a reputation as head hunters. According to Paul Jacobsthal, "Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the otherworld." (source)

Catch that? “Otherworld”. There is another myth (Irish, specifically) called the Voyage of Bran, in which the title character goes on a quest to the Otherworld. The Otherworld is a supernatural realm in Celtic mythology. It is also where the sidhe (a.k.a. aos sí) live. Remember, the sidhe are what George has said the Others are inspired by. In Irish mythology, the Otherworld is called Tír na nÓg, Mag Mell and Emain Ablach, in Welsh mythology it’s called Annwn, and in Arthurian legend it’s called Avalon. Fun fact, “Avalon” was the title of the novel George was writing when he had suddenly had the idea of a scene in which a young boy and his brothers see a beheading and then find a litter of direwolf pups in the snow. And so ASOIAF happened.

I’ll leave that there, and try not to go down the great big rabbit-hole of Celtic (and other cultures) mythology connections in ASOIAF. The takeaway is: ASOIAF has been influenced by these myths.

I do believe that Bran is going to be King. Not just because of his ties to this mythology, but also because of symbolism in his own story. The most notable one being…

Under the hill, the broken boy sat upon a weirwood throne, listening to whispers in the dark as ravens walked up and down his arms.

[...]

The singers made Bran a throne of his own, like the one Lord Brynden sat, white weirwood flecked with red, dead branches woven through living roots. 

[...]

His father and the black pool and the godswood faded and were gone and he was back in the cavern, the pale thick roots of his weirwood throne cradling his limbs as a mother does a child. 

- Bran III, A Dance with Dragons

Bran is also the only one of the Stark kids who still thinks of himself as royalty:

What was he now? Only Bran the broken boy, Brandon of House Stark, prince of a lost kingdom, lord of a burned castle, heir to ruins.

- Bran III, A Dance with Dragons

Bran is the heir to Winterfell. It doesn’t matter if Robb named Jon his heir in his will, the will was written under the pretense that Bran and Rickon were dead.

However, Bran doesn’t have any connection to the Iron Throne. It’s far more likely that he would sit on a weirwood throne, because of, y’know, everything about his story. So, if Bran was King of the Seven Kingdoms, I don’t think it would be on the Pincushion Stool.

If Bran is king of the realm, I do think there would still be a separate Lord/Lady of Winterfell, but I do think that there’s a possibility of a Pevensie siblings ending, where all the Stark kids would rule together as the Lords and Ladies and Winterfell.

Something that I’ve never really seen talked about regarding the idea of Bran becoming King of the Seven Kingdoms is the religious differences between the North and the southern regions of Westeros. Of course, the show didn’t deal with this at all. For fuck’s sake, they had Cersei blow up the Westerosi verison of the Vatican and face no backlash. It was so laughably absurd how Show!Cersei’s destructive reign was shown to have like… zero impact on the Seven Kingdoms. 

In short, I’m not too sure that the Kingdom who is majority Faith of the Seven worshippers would react too well to a weirwood-tree-Old-Gods-warg-wizard-king. I mean, when Janos Slynt finds out Jon is a warg he calls him a “thing”, a “creature”, and a “beastling that is not fit to live”, and wanted to execute him not just for being a turncloak but for being a warg as well. And Jojen warns Bran of these things, saying that his own folk may want to kill him if they know what he is.

But… all of that anti-magic attitude might not matter after night falls. 

Part 4: Winter is Coming

I believe that the Long Night is going to be very devastating for the Seven Kingdoms.

Martin is a big believer in making things have meaningful, permanent consequences in his stories. I don’t think that an apocalyptic event like the Long Night is something that’s just gonna get dealt with in a quick snap and have no lasting effect.

A lot of people are going to die. I don’t mean main characters, I mean people that would not survive a normal winter and sure as hell won’t be prepared for this one. Westeros’s food stores have been severely depleted by the War of the Five Kings, and we’ve been told multiple times in the text (particularly AFFC and ADWD) that feeding people during this winter is going to be extremely hard.

Besides that… the whole, uh, invasion of the eldritch ice beings thing might have a bit of an impact on the realm. 

I won’t go into depth about how the Seven Kingdoms will be affected by the Long Night, ‘cause we really have no idea. But, however it all goes down, I do think it will have lasting changes for the people of Westeros. The impact that it leaves may make the concept of Bran being a wizard-king more acceptable. “Oh, well we’ve just seen zombies and winter elves, so what’s too surprising about a magical greenseer warg king?” I think that Westerosi culture becoming more aware and accepting of the existence of magic is the only way that Bran could become the king of the whole realm. The Westeros at the end of the series is not going to be the place that it was at the beginning.

Part 5: Dany: A Home, Not a Throne

To sum up my thoughts on our dragon girl, I don’t think Dany will end up on the Spiky Toilet. I don’t want Dany to be on the Spiky Toilet.

Now, my personal speculation (which a lot of people disagree with, which is fine) is that Dany will never see King’s Landing before the Long Night. I personally don’t think that Dany will ever meet Aegon or Cersei. I don’t see there being enough time in the story for that. Yes, GRRM said that there will be a second Dance of the Dragons, but he also said that the second Dance does not have to involve Dany. He may have originally planned for it to be Aegon and Dany, but probably not once the Meereenese Knot happened.

The Meereenese Knot is what Dany’s ADWD plot is referred to as. GRRM did not intend for Dany to stay in Meereen as long as she has, but because of his “gardener” style of writing, that’s where the story led him. GRRM has said that one of the hardest parts of writing the Meereen plotline (which involves Dany, Barristan, Quentyn, Tyrion, and Victarion) is trying to find a way to cut the plot knot he accidentally got himself stuck in. He has said that Tyrion and Dany will meet towards the end of TWOW, which means that Dany will most likely be spending a large portion of her story with the Dothraki. That part is a completely blank page, but I believe that Dany will meet Tyrion possibly ¾ of the way into the book, and sail for Westeros at the end.

I won’t write a full meta about this here (because that’s not what this post is about), but to summarize my prediction: Aegon VS Cersei is going to be the battle in King’s Landing, a battle which will destroy the city. Dany (who has already rejected sailing for the Throne multiple times) will still be stuck in Essos, dealing with everything she’s still got going on, and will sail for Westeros at the end. Not for the Throne, but to go North for the real fight (remember that Marwyn is also on his way to Meereen to tell Dany that they need her).

Because Dany's purpose is not to fight for the Iron Throne, it’s to fight the Others. Dany (fire, light, and life) VS the Others (ice, darkness, and death) is the main thing the title refers to:

“Well of course the two outlying ones, the things that are going on north of the Wall and Daenerys Targaryen on the other continent with her dragons are of course the Ice and Fire of the title, the Song of Ice and Fire.” 

- George R.R. Martin, 2016

One of the most important excerpts that shows us where Dany’s story is headed is this:

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.

- Daenerys III, A Storm a Swords

Dany has a short prophetic “this is what I was meant to do” dream. Dany could possibly have more dreams about the Others in TWOW, visions that will make what Marwyn has to tell her more believable. It’s not like that dream was the only one Dany has had that alludes to the winter threat, Dany has had visions about this since book one:

The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run.

- Dany IX, A Game of Thrones

Anyway, there’s just a lot more foreshadowing in the plot that this is what Dany is meant to do. I think adding in another conflict into her story once she leaves Meereen would make the story feel bloated and would severely fuck up the pacing.

I don’t think Dany will ever see the Iron Throne. The themes of her story have never been about her wanting the Iron Throne for what it is, but for what it represents to her. It represents the possibility of a home and of feeling safe for the first time in her life, what Dany truly wants. I think that it’s absolutely fine if Dany never sees the Throne or sits on it, and that it makes more sense for her narrative arc if she discovers that she can find a home somewhere else, not necessarily where she thought it would be. 

Part 6: Final Thoughts

So, in conclusion, I don’t really give a shit who ends up placing their ass on the Forbidden Laz-E-Boy, I care about the War for the Dawn. I care about seeing the characters I’ve followed for the past five books coming together to fight the real conflict of A Song of Ice and Fire. Also, even if we do get a Scouring of the Shire-type post-climax for ASOIAF, it doesn’t matter. People don’t see the Scouring of the Shire as the climax of Lord of the Rings, they see the climax as Aragorn leading the forces of good against the forces of evil and Frodo and Sam throwing the One Ring into Mount Doom. Whatever ending resolution comes after the climax of ASOIAF, it doesn’t change what the climax is.

"Do you think your brother's war is more important than ours?" the old man barked.

Jon chewed his lip. The raven flapped its wings at him. "War, war, war, war," it sang.

"It's not," Mormont told him. "Gods save us, boy, you're not blind and you're not stupid. When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne?"

"No." Jon had not thought of it that way.

- Jon IX, A Game of Thrones

TL;DR:

My prediction: Cersei will be the last person to sit the Iron Throne, which will be destroyed in the Wildfire of King’s Landing. After the Long Night devastates the Seven Kingdoms, Bran will become the King of this new Westeros that has been majorly affected by the return of magic. Also, it would be real nice if Dany found her red door.

God I hope my rambling made sense

[janiedean]

not to be that person but idk why everyone keeps behaving like sansa surviving KL and LF means she's smarter than every other stark like only court intrigues and politics require you to be smart?? and surviving amongst the smallfolk and assassins and night's watch and beyond the wall is all about brawn and physical strength??? that's so... classist lmfao, like surviving without revealing you're a highborn in a warzone, not starving to death, not being killed by soldiers/assassins/whatnot requires as much brains as surviving court politics. jon had to deal with politics at the NW and with Stannis. admittedly bran's story was doesn't at all in the show but he's about the only one who manages to explore his warging abilities fully it's not a piece of cake?? and arya had to escape KL, survive flea bottom, then harrenhal (under ROOSE BOLTON FFS) and the bwb and the red wedding AND get to braavos and survive the faceless men whoch is supposedly the leading assassin organization in asoiaf.

i'm not even getting into everything dany's done and survived lol. but okay samsa is the only genius in westeros, we know she is because tyrion says so i guess? not to mention show sansa's political "mentors" are possible the WORST examples of rulers we have - cersei and littlefinger. they didn't give 2 shits about ruling or the smallfolk or leadership, just about their own power. and i'd say that's important given how much time grrm spends showing us how the smallfolk suffer because of the games played by kings and queens.

this... actually requires a bit of going into it but like not counting that show sansa was a travesty and I'm choosing to not acknowledge it, and show lf was... I mean I'm not even going into how much it was a disservice to the og char whom I detest but honestly book!lf wouldn't marry sansa to anyone he didn't do research about lmfao but like not going into... those... plot holes.....

the entire point is that in the book sansa ends up under those two's tutelage anyway and... she's posed to do the contrary? what does she think looking at c.? that when she's queen she wants to be loved not feared, and like... being with lf is testing her morals but it's obvious that since she survived staying kind until now (I mean... again it's her leitmotiv she helped lancel & about everyone she could who was a jerk to her to the point it sent at least lancel into a faith crisis, she felt bad for joffrey like FOR FUCKING JOFFREY COME ON that's her selling point HER FUCKING SELLING POINT) then she'll just... gain enough political knowledge to outsmart people when she wants to but she won't use it to be a jerk she'll use it.. to.. help her family... when they're reunited which is p obvious to me but nvm

the thing is that people have decided to attach it to the underdog female character goes up the power ladder trope which.... like that's not it

also there's the part where like people are so caught up in the whole WHO HAS IT WORSE BETWEEN SANSA AND ARYA WHO IS THE BEST feud that... they don't notice that they have specular ways of dealing with trauma like arya is dealing with having to lose her identity/risking not knowing who she is anymore and she has to deal with increasing violence/ptsd-related trauma bc she's throw in the middle of everything bad she could end up in like she was almost in the red wedding I was 90% sure she also died until I saw she had a chapter after, while sansa has managed to dodge courtly poisons by being herself and by not letting it change who she is which tyrion noticed which everyone noticed which is why guess what tyrion is willing to stand up to his father and tell him no when it comes to actually having sex with her when he couldn't for the marriage and she's the only person that managed to get past sandor's trauma issues enough that he tried to actually help her for what he could, like... arya has de-personalization to overcome, sansa is holding to her guns by staying herself and she has to learn what good she can from lf before ditching him and keeping on staying herself like it's fucking specular it's not supposed to be a game of who has it worse

(wish ppl would get it also with jaime and tyrion and their coping with trauma but nvm)

the fact that ppl downplay that jon isn't politically an idiot at all irks me forever but like... bruh the dude handled being lord commander, an entire siege when he was like seventeen and was hobbling around on crutches, managed to infiltrate the wildlings without anyone finding out (and it traumatized the shit out of him but nvm) and if only he was good at PR he wouldn't have gotten juliuscaesared, like... okay X°DDD

I mean... yes it's classist but that's a dead horse to beat, if people actually took that angle into account they wouldn't write off brienne or davos chapters as BORING if only bc they're the only ones where you see how not-nobles are doing as in badly X°D

anyway like all stark kids have enough smarts to survive their storylines and robb had to be taken out with a betrayal so he wasn't being that stupid either differently from what my villain origin story thinks but again as someone said once if you hate a stark kid to prop up your fave your fave most likely would hate you so that's my stance X°D

but like... the point is that sansa was shown to gaf about others/the smallfolk/people lower than her in the food chain which dnd/half of this fandom didn't get which is why she'll be an excellent regent for bran and I'm dying on that hill but again this entire thing where you have to pit your fave against everyone else to show how much more badass/smarter they are is imvho a useless exercise because then I'll cut the gordian knot and say that if gilly managed to survive at least seventeen years with her father in that context knowing that her mother was also her sister and that she'd get the same treatment and if she had male children they'd get put out in the open and killed and then was forced to swap her own baby for another without knowing if that baby was going to die or not and she still had it in herself to not turn into a complete asshole she wins for toughest survivor in westeros at least out of the girls unless we want jeynep to give her a run for her money because like... going from lf to ramsay and not as a protegé and considering she was afraid ramsay was going to sic dogs on her when they saved her I think we can maybe ger some perspective here X°DDDD

(I'm not even going into the guys because honestly there's an amount of trauma that's not quantifiable in there X°DD)

like...... again everyone has it bad in these books and propping up your fave making the others look bad makes no sense bc if you love your fave then you have reasons to and you don't need to compare them to others to make them look as good as you think they are and that's my hill to die on X°D

[swordmaid]

Brienne / Jaime / Samwise / Eowyn

brienne

favorite thing about them: difficult to answer because i talk about them everyday but i enjoy how the presence of choice is always present in her everything. it was her choice to follow renly, to serve catelyn, to keep her promise to catelyn, to find jaime’s honor. she is never forced to do anything; everything she has done is by her own choice which is such an interesting juxtaposition to characters like catelyn where they are very much tied down and limited by their society and how they expect women to be. brienne on the other hand, has the luxury of choice--which is a freedom on itself, but that is not to say she isn’t limited by their society. she still IS, but it’s interesting how she managed to achieve that semblance of freedom even though it isn’t since she’ll still being evaluated to their standards (and unlike cat, she’s being evaluated as both a knight and a woman and she’s seen as a failure of both). i also like how--despite the cruelties thrown her way--she never perpetuates it even though she could have!!! easily!! and it’d be understandable if she does but she chooses not to do it. she even feels sympathy for the people who played the bet on her when she heard what happened to them which is super crazy like those dudes didn’t give a shit about her but here she is giving a shit about them even if it’s just for a moment and it’s just like...........wow. you are choosing to be like that and i love you for it

least favorite thing about them: worst taste in men.

favorite line: her whole speech in the quiet isle is so heartbreaking and also one of my favorite passages in the whole story. her saying that selwyn deserved to have daughters who will sing and dance in his halls, and a son that would give him honor but all he is left with is the freakish one that’s not fit to be a son or daughter first of all heartbreaking ): second of all the underlying implication that if she’s the one who died but her other siblings--whether it be galladon, arianne or alysanne--that lived then maybe selwyn wouldn’t be so dishonored is so!!!!! the survivor’s guilt of it all even though it’s not her fault!!!! and it’s really the way that she DID try to be alysanne/arianne, and she DID try to be galladon for him but none of the roles fit because she’s meant for something greater 😭😭😭😭

brOTP: pod and brienne ofc! next to pia and brienne, then sandor and brienne, and then sam and brienne.

OTP: jb

nOTP: tormund x brienne LOL we dont do that here

random headcanon: brienne likes to write poetry and she wrote a bunch dedicated to renly LOL. her old poems are stashed in the bottom of her trunk, collecting dust in her childhood room.

unpopular opinion: brienne’s self-righteous, judgemental and stubborn nature is not as explored nor brought up when talking about her character tbh and i feel like that facet of her character shouldn’t be ignored. when we explore her flaws, it’s usually about her naiveté which is fair since she IS naive--but that’s not her only flaw lol

song i associate with them: rabbit heart (raise it up) by florence + the machine

favorite picture of them: erika’s drawing of brienne in her tarth armour is one of my favourite pieces ever + this one with dunk’s shield!!!

jaime

favorite thing about them: his pov in asos is what made me like him tbh he is just SO well written, and his character is compelling and interesting. his relationship with knighthood is so interesting too like he is THE stereotypical knight in shining armor except he’s not that. he is just so disillusioned by knighthood but he still continues to follow it despite all, and it’s really the way that his identity has been formed and given to him to wear!! from being tywin’s son, then cersei’s mirror, then the kingsguard then the kingslayer and it’s like none of these identities were made by his own hands but he wears them because they’re a role to play and that’s what he knows what to do, but then he suddenly learns to step back and craft his own identity and be whoever what he wants to be it’s like..........what are u gonna be huh!!!!! it’s like there is a mirror but the person on the other side has never been HIM till now i am going insane. and i was talking about the presence of choice being present for brienne but for jaime.........it isn’t .....not really.............not till now.

least favorite thing about them: that scene where he touched cleos’ mushy head was disgusting

favorite line: how can such a night be beautiful? he asked himself. why would the stars want to look down on such as me? which is so WAAH THE DRAMA. but it’s also the loneliness and the yearning and it’s grasping for something that he can never hold, arms outstretched to hold on to something so far away and it’s also about the celestial imagery of the stars and it’s relationship with brienne (the evenstar) and arthur dayne (star of the morning) and how those two are honorable knights but jaime is not!!! and why would they look down on someone such as him!!!! fuck.

brOTP: his relationship with tyrion ): i also like ilyn and jaime, and pia and jaime. sandor and jaime would be interesting as well since that’s like ~the two beasts~ for their respective batb

OTP: jb :\

nOTP: jaime/sansa lmao

random headcanon: jaime has a fat ass. like i know he’s canonically skinny now because of his imprisonment but you’re gonna have to pry jaime with thick thighs and fat ass away from my cold dead manicured fingernails

unpopular opinion: he’s going to live by the end <3

song i associate with them: time in a tree by raleigh ritchie

favorite picture of them: fawn’s drawing of jaime being a dilf ):

samwise

mind you i haven’t read the books so im going by the film lol

favorite thing about them: their everything <3 )):

least favorite thing about them: i dont think im allowed to say shit about sam tbh i feel like im gonna be tasered if i do

favorite line: it’s your sam!!!!!!!! and also i can’t carry it for you but i can carry you waaah

brOTP: frodo/sam

OTP: frodo/sam

nOTP: um idk

random headcanon: they’re super hot but that’s not a headcanon

unpopular opinion: nothing i love them

song i associate with them: i think how was your day? by mellow fellow fits them

favorite picture of them: this one bc it’s so cute kekeke

eowyn

favorite thing about them: they had very cute outfits honestly i think her wardrobe was my favorite out of everyone

least favorite thing about them: not enough screen time

favorite line: her iconic i am no man line ig

brOTP: eowyn and merry!

OTP: i would say with that guy she ended up with but i also dont know HOW they got together?? like 🧍

nOTP: n/a

random headcanon: idk enough about her to make hcs

unpopular opinion: i thought the aragorn one-sided romance was a bit ? lol like why are you hitting on him he already told you he got someone else

song i associate with them: king and lionheart by of monster and men ig but im not so sure and that’s so general

favorite picture of them: i haven’t seen much eowyn content to have a fave pic sorry!!

[summersnowz]

i’ve always seen daenerys, if she ever took the throne (which is, of course, up for debate) as an elizabeth i figure. grrm has said tht he based a lot of asoiaf on the war of the roses, so it makes sense, for me at least, to have dany represent elizabeth.

elizabeth, who reigned for 44 years after her half-brother ‘reigned’ for 6 and her half-sister reigned for 5, both of whom had pretty tumultuous reigns.

elizabeth, who refused to marry, and who never had children, becoming known as ‘the virgin queen.’

elizabeth, who was disinherited multiple times, and who was kept in the tower of london and under close watch after released all during her sisters reign.

elizabeth, who was called ‘good queen bess’ and is known as one of england’s greatest monarchs.

now, this is all background of who elizabeth was, and there is so much more to her story. daenerys is obviously not meant to be elizabeth, but i do find parallels in their stories.

(i want to preface this all by saying that these characters are not mirrors of these people, nor are their stories. these are just parallels that i am finding but also be reminded, that i am not doing this for a ‘what may happen in canon’ this is more for me, and for any fanfic writers who may like to think on it)

for starters, king robert was most likely a parallel of henry viii, elizabeth’s father. whilst this does not matter realistically, i feel the need to include it. under henry, england did okay. it did not prosper, and he did drag it into wars they could not afford, putting the country into a bad financial situation. sounds like our bob. after henry died, there was trouble with his children.

(though i do want to point out that henry the seventh, was known as an ‘usurper’)

henry had one legitimate son, edward the sixth. edward was only a child when he became king, but his reign was marked with religious unrest and economic problems. edward ended up writing his sisters from the line of succession, which ended up not mattering.

i can see some similarities with edward, tommen and joffrey. the religious unrest in particular, along with the war with scotland (whom i can see paralleling the north) and the multiple rebellions. however this isn’t what i’m focusing on.

next comes mary the first, better known as ‘bloody mary.’ mary also dealt with religious unrest, mainly because she was catholic and dealing with edwards protestant legislation. mary became infamous for the burning of 300 protestants at the stake. now, since tommen is still king, i cant say who parallels mary, though i can see similarities with her and cersei.

after mary, however, comes elizabeth. elizabeth inherits a very torn england, and it is her job to put it back together. one key thing to note is that elizabeth had never even thought of inheriting the throne - she was third in the line of succession. another similarity with daenerys, for me. the inheritance of a uncivil england, would be a direct parallel if dany were to take the throne bc westeros is kinda fucked rn.

elizabeth essentially ushers in a new age, all whilst dealing with the political, social, economic and religious fallout from her siblings. elizabeth herself was not overly religious, and the same is said about dany.

daenerys is known as a mother to her people, and is prudent about her duty as queen being to the people who cannot protect themselves. while i cannot draw a more direct parallel, elizabeth was almost always known to be saying how either she is married to her county, or she is likening herself to a mother of her country.

i also do want to mention elizabeth’s lack of children, which would be a direct parallel to daenerys if she were truly infertile. james stuart becomes king after elizabeth, and the tudor line dies out - which could be used as some inspiration if you wish.

more importantly though, is what happened during her reign. elizabeth’s reign saw a boom in the arts, literature became more accessiable, theatre became what we know it as today and the poor laws were introduced. the poor laws were essentially relief for the poor (though they were quite brutal at times) and stood in place for over 200 years. these laws signialled the first move into welfare, and whilst it is debated on how effective they were, they were undeniably a step in the right direction.

now, there’s no saying what daenerys will do once she takes the throne, but i think looking at what elizabeth achieved would be a good groundwork for looking at dany. i’m not trying to predict canon, instead give inspiration for fanfic writers to take their post-baratheon/lannister & queen daenerys westeros to a new level by looking at history. obviously though, don’t forget the magic ;)

(again, as an afternote, this is not me predicting canon but instead trying to give inspiration for a queen daenerys westeros. it’s also midnight, and so i apologise if my facts are wrong or if it makes no sense! this is also my opinion and a bit of a ramble, so just enjoy!)

edit: i wrote henry viii as henry vii, which was a mistake and is now fixed ! <3

[melrosing]

Do you think Cersei would have been happier if she was able to marry Rhaegar?

I think it’s just two different types of unhappy tbh. if she’d married Rhaegar instead of Elia, she would’ve felt the initial rush of accomplishment in bagging this particular guy and the crown with it, having crushed on him since she was a child. then there’d be the inevitable disillusionment when Rhaegar proves strange and distant, and even goes on to pursue Lyanna instead. that would humiliate Cersei beyond recovery I think, bc whilst Robert’s approval means very little to her, Rhaegar’s would probably always mean a lot whether she liked him as a person or no. it’s not just a point of pride as it might be w Robert, it’s the matter of being cast aside by this guy specifically. I can see Cersei despising how distant he is but more because she wants to be close to him and wants to reach this ethereal level he’s on. to be put aside for some northern girl without a word of explanation would fuck with Cersei for the rest of her life. and who knows how anything else plays out from there but god like maybe she ends up married to Robert afterwards anyway idk. but either way I think no she’s probably not one bit happier in the grand scheme of things

[atopvisenyashill]

What if Tywin died instead of Joanna?

i’m so mad i had a better structured answer and tumblr ate it so now this is super long and ranty. blame tumblr!!

anyways, i’m seeing three scenarios here

everyone is better off

the twins are still Doing That but tyrion is better off, so probably everything is still better off

aerys loses his absolute mind bc joanna is single now

while i imagine joanna does engage jaime to elia - and this is probably a much happier outcome for both of them, because joanna would have attempted to put a stop to the incest, up to and including sending cersei to foster somewhere else - i do think cersei is a huge question mark. she is often the instigator of their problems!

not to lay the respsonibility at her feet or anything, bc she experiences shit in her childhood that is enough to damage most people’s psyches (losing a parent that young and to childbirth is hard developmentally not to mention a fucked up prophecy hanging over her head & potential issues with empathy already!) and then experiences decades of spousal abuse, and is then given near unlimited power and told “now don’t do anything crazy lol” like, of course cersei decides “if i have to live in hell i’m taking these two idiots with me what are baby brothers FOR after all” and if you want them to have a chance at normalcy in adulthood, the key is for cersei to have a less traumatic time so she has half a chance at adjusting to the regular stressors of life. the main way to do this is to get her away from jaime and away from any terrible prophecies that trigger some sort of fucked up neurosis in her from an early age.

now, we don’t know who joanna had in mind for cersei, if she had even thought that far, but being lady regent of the west, she’s going to have significant control over who cersei marries. if she sends cersei away to foster somewhere to get her away from jaime, shes got a wide range of possibilities and if someone reaches out to her to get involved in their lil rebellion, she might take the opportunity to send cersei somewhere quite far, like riverrun or the eyrie or dorne or the fucking north, so long as it’s right now immediately & the distance might do cersei some good but equally possible cersei takes this as rejection and turns on her mother; though, if she’s spending her adolescent years somewhere with a healthier dynamic (and the bar is in hell) maybe cersei isn’t so paranoid. but that’s ONLY IF joanna is healthy enough & aware enough to send cersei away when she’s like 8 or 9. it’s a big if.

then there’s the tyrion of it all - i think joanna warms up to him eventually and cersei being elsewheres means he’s probably better off. at the very least, there’s less conflict if jaime married elia and had heirs like he was supposed to wrt tyrion, and Joanna may even attempt some matchmaking for him and can do that without the added stress of “he is disabled and also inheriting casterly rock” bc like, i’m not saying joanna would take the same hardline stance but i AM saying she saw something to love in fucjing TYWIN, and i don’t think she’s a saint who would unequivocably embrace her disabled son. BUT i don’t think she’d shame him or abuse him the way tywin does either. tyrion grows up in a family all similar to jaime; they certainly aren’t always respectful, frequently patronizing, dismissive, and tyrion is likely to get resentful at times (who wouldn’t) but i think everyone can agree that a household full of “i know they mean well but they don’t understand what it’s like” is an improvement over whatever the fuck tywin was doing.

all of this means…maybe the twins are married elsewhere when robert gains his throne potentially after KL goes boom since Jaime isn’t there to whack Aerys, but potentially after a much easier rebellion because dorne sided with the rebels, house lannister sides with the rebels, and they coup aerys the fuck out of there a bit easier. robert probably marries a tyrell or a hightower (there’s a few of marriage age and they’re rich) in that case. the realm is a lot better off lmao. OR cersei isn’t married yet (she’s still a lil young admittedly) and does marry robert. probably still attempts to pull jaime to her but joanna knows this is happening and is more inclined to stop it, especially with jaime married to elia, her best friend’s daughter and the beloved sister of the now prince of dorne. this probably causes a lot of problems ergo scenario two, but i do think a world where jaime or joanna is in charge of casterly rock, even a world where the incest still exists, is a world that is miles better off just bc joanna isn’t going to ignore the problem like tywin, and tyrion being even marginally less fucked up is a net win.

OR like i worried above, aerys starts a war for joanna. i mean, petyr started a war over his obsession with cat & sansa, it is not out of the realm of possibility that aerys “burning the lord paramount and his heir alive is fine actually” targaryen goes “joanna comes to court or i set casterly rock on fire” and that’s not really good for ANYONE.

so anyways if joanna lives it’s probably fine, probably even better actually, or maybe, everyone dies on fire. typical westeros really.

[gedwimora-arc]

i’m thinking about like, the logistics of eddard’s KITN verse and like, the concept here is that Ned’s been freed/somehow spirited out of KL before his execution/that whole thing takes longer to get to so there’s more time for a rescue or something to that effect and when he makes to the northern forces who are all in the riverlands with Robb there’s a HUGE desire through ALL the northerners to say fuck the crown and make him KITN regardless of his thoughts on it because at this point he’d uh.... just like to see a DOCTOR, hug his wife and all of his children that he can and you know.... BE HOME. but there’s no stopping it. The lords all want to secede and well, it’s not like he’s their king and can 100% veto that soooooooo.

as it stands here’s kinda what i’m thinking is going on there but i’m still working it out, this is just what i thought of while writing that starter for colleen and ass i’m writing this.

Arya, still mia. Sansa either escaped with him or still in KL or Somewhere Else as the plotting decides.

Robb, still engaged to a frey and all the things agreed to lord frey still hold since that was all in AGOT

Robb’s already been out here leadin’ shit so Eddard can’t rightfully tell him to go home or something (also you know.... The Ironborn Thing) so Robb’s right there by his side at all the meetings and things and getting to do Lord Stuff with Dad.

Eddard’s just absolutely Not Thriving Yall lbr but catelyn being there makes it better :’)

a lotta grief over Bran and Rickon pm 24/7.

idk WHAT happens with the red wedding bc i can still see Robb marrying Jeyne being a thing but all the other elements to it???? not so clear bc i mean, Eddard already doesn’t trust Walder Frey AT ALL while Yes he’s very honorable and such he’d be a FUCKING IDIOT to not have LEARNED SOMETHING from his squaring up against Cersei “ honor is for suckers ” Lannister. So I like to think he’d be a BIT better on the uptake of subterfuge and such now. Not perfect but you know..... not a fucking idiot. still idk the deets here.

some things i imagine would be a bit easier for jon as you know.... having his dad being the king would help a lot dfshsfgsd at least when it comes to the watch trying to tell people shit’s going BANANAS up there and when they gotta sort out shit with the wildlings, he can you know... send a raven down like “uh hey...... we got some new neighbors.... fyi” how much changes is up for debate but at least the communication here is better and jon will be taken more seriously when he reports on wights and walkers.

i’m now remembering melissandre’s leeches and yeah idk what to do about that shit skjfdghdfkjghds but natually eddard can’t die for realizes bc then i cAN’T DO SHIT so idk Thoros Was There™ i’ll have to figure it out kfjghfkdljsgs

honestly tbh the war just over all the war goes way better for the north most likely

i got NO idea what he does about stannis but at least they’d be civil and shit 

[dwellordream]

I’d love Jaime fics if they were you know a bit more realistic, there’s no way Jaime is gonna love your oc completely, there’s Cersei and I personally think Jaime fics should never be a PG love story (unless you want to go AU) but a gruesome tale of human relationships and yessss for me having Tywin and Cersei as in-laws is such a exciting idea because I need that intimate POV of the Lannister circle maybe I’m biased bc I love them too much

Right I would say a lot of fics involving Jaime and an OC involve Jaime behaving pretty out of character unless this is a massive AU where he and Cersei were never together to begin with. And that’s such a giant part of who Jaime is and what he’s built his entire personality around, at least at the start of his arc.  The BTW rewrite will probably be very southern Gothic (or just Gothic in general) in terms of fucked up codependent family dynamics and repeating patterns of violence and toxicity taken as love because of this. Because the Lannisters are a very fucked up family who are always a hair’s breadth away from totally collapsing in on themselves, which I think is shown in canon by how horrendously badly things start to go for them starting with Joffrey and Tywin’s murders.