#like now i know she has a son i'm assuming marriage for the 'wtf with the land' part but like. is it r e a l l y though???

[fandom-geek]

the downside of being a medievalist is sometimes you keep stumbling across one woman and her family from 700 years ago but none of what they're doing or being said to have makes any sense so you're just there jumping between utter bafflement and infuriation

like why the fuck is a woman who is explicitly a free tenant paying heriot???? that's not how any of this works! why does she have ~120 acres in 1350 and apparently ~240 in 1355????? is she or is she not the woman with the identical and otherwise unheard of forename in the same area from 1308 and, if so, how did she go from transferring her share of their father's land to her brother-in-law to having an entire bloody hide or even two????

[marierosejosephtascher]

I posted 1,406 times in 2022

That's 1,323 more posts than 2021!

27 posts created (2%)

1,379 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@juilletdeux

@jaeausten

@cinematv

I tagged 1,406 of my posts in 2022

#queue and a - 643 posts

#queue tie pie - 545 posts

#fashion - 281 posts

#celebs - 219 posts

#movies - 151 posts

#queue and i - 139 posts

#house of the dragon - 125 posts

#bridgerton - 86 posts

#merlin bbc - 67 posts

#star wars - 59 posts

Longest Tag: 102 characters

#i know the show will be over by then but i'm assuming there would still be ppl whio haven't watched it

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

So, Viserys considers Rhaenyra his only child...Not even his favourite his ONLY child. Does that mean Alicent was sold off as a teenager for nothing? Does that mean she endured years of marital rape by a decaying man for nothing? Does that mean she was deprived of the chance of a happy marriage and a happy life for nothing? Does that mean Rhaenyra lost her best friend for nothing? Does that mean three (or four, actually) children were conceived for nothing? Did anything Viserys did besides naming Rhaenyra his heir matter to him at all?

115 notes - Posted October 14, 2022

#4

What happened to Luke was the perfect example as to why it was so nonsensical of Daemon to even consider the young dragons and their riders as any sort of asset in battle. These are just kids we're talking about, who have never fought in their lives. It's not just about numbers or size, it's about experience. Vhagar was part of Aegon's conquest, she has fought in a real war, unlike the others. She knew what she was doing when she let Arrax seemingly get an advantage by flying above the clouds. She did that on purpose so that she could surprise him and catch him off guard. And all of that without any orders from Aemond. We saw what happened when one small dragon blew fire in Vhagar's face. I can't even imagine what would have happened if they had all attempted surrounding her, which is what Daemon seemed to be getting at. I'm glad at least Rhaenyra had the sense to point out the obvious.

117 notes - Posted October 27, 2022

#3

There's just something so gross about invalidating a disabled man's feelings regarding his disability, but team Black stans aren't ready for that conversation.

128 notes - Posted October 28, 2022

#2

The people who praise Viserys for favoring Rhaenyra and excusing all of her actions while he mistreats his other children, confuse and disgust me at the same time. First of all, if Aemond was the main character that the narrative wants you to sympathize with, y'all would be fawning over him for being the soft boi with Daddy issues that just didn't get enough love when he was little and that's why he's evil now. But since he's an obstacle in Rhaenyra's way and therefore the villain of the story, y'all are cheering when his own Dad doesn't give a fuck about him and shows it at every turn. It's sickening, actually.

And also, do you guys not realize it was Viserys who decided to get married again and have more kids. No one forced them on him. Even if there were expectations for him, he could have dismissed them, just like he does with the accusations against Rhaenyra. He put Rhaenyra's succession into question by having multiple other children.

Also Aegon, Haelena and Aemond are just as much Targaryens as Rhaenyra is, like wtf? Just because their parents aren't related, that doesn't mean they are less part of the dynasty y'all claim Viserys is supposedly supporting by turning a blind eye on Rhaenyra's actions.

261 notes - Posted October 7, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I have to say, i'm team Greens this episode. Aemond lost an eye and the only person who seems to realize the extend of his trauma is his Mother. Like, Viserys was more concerned about the accusations against Rhaenyra than he was about his own son being assaulted by his grandson and becoming disabled in the process. And Rhaenyra really tried to minimize what had happened by shifting the conversation about HER and not about the person who is most likely in unimaginable pain.

Also, Aemond is right. His nephews and nieces did attack him first. They started it, because one of them felt entitled to a dragon. No, Vhagar didn't belong to Rhaena. As Dany said, a dragon is no slave. It's not an old sweater that you pass down to someone. If Vhagar saw Aemond as unworthy of her, she would have rejected him.

Also, I love how it's outrageous that Aemond would claim Vhagar right after Laena's death, but Daemon sleeping with his niece the day after his wife's funeral is A-OK.

Also, I love how, just like her son, Alicent is right about what she said and gets punished for it. She's expected as a Mother to be devoted to her kids, but when she is, she's some kind of a monster or insane? I admit, she went too far with asking to take Luke's eye out, but tell me how a parent could remain calm when their child has just been maimed and when they're told it's not that big of a deal.

622 notes - Posted October 3, 2022

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[phoenixwrites]

I just reread Till We Have Faces, and one of the things that's really bothering me is Psyche, a teenage girl, literally having sex with the god. IMO Orual is justifiably upset and right to assume something terrible is happening, but knowing Lewis, the sex might be an in-universe allegory? Is it supposed to be, or is it really just that creepy? Bc right now it seems like Orual did nothing wrong. (I'm a devout and orthodox Catholic; it's really troubling that I can't get onboard with this book.)

I’ll be real with you, this is the first I’ve ever heard of an objection to Psyche’s age in “Till We Have Faces”!

Well in your defense, no one’s required to like “Till We Have Faces”.  What works for one reader may completely fail for another–personal taste is, after all, subjective.  You’re entitled to be creeped out because that’s not something someone can really control.  

As for the age thing–well, Psyche’s age isn’t specifically mentioned, as far as I’m aware.  We’re just sort of going by Lewis’ word that she was of marriageable age.  But of course, this is supposed to take place in a fictional barbarian kingdom near Greece, a heavily patriarchal culture at that, where I doubt there’s a concept of “age of consent”.  (Honestly, since it was an ancient culture, it was probably whenever the girl started menstruating…)  Furthermore, this is based on an actual Greek myth where the young girl Psyche (the myth also doesn’t specify her age) falls in love with the Greek god Eros.  And the whole “she can’t look at his face but she eventually succumbs to temptation and lights a lamp in their marital bed” is also a thing that happened in the actual myth itself.  The entire myth has a lot of sexual connotations.  

Lewis had lots of interesting ideas about sex and he was really fascinated by the concept of male-female relations being literal symbolism for God’s relationship to humans.  So Psyche marrying and consummating her marriage with Eros is a symbol of someone entering a relationship with God.  Is that weird?  Maybe, but it’s also not necessarily new.  He was a medievalist after all, and there were a lot of people in medieval times who connected religion and sex.  And in mild defense of Lewis, his ideas weren’t nearly as creepy/weird/wtf as his buddy Charles Williams, who was literally a part of several sex cults in Oxford.  

I think Orual’s natural justification and reason is exactly the point though–the logical, rational explanation for Psyche’s disappearance is her being kidnapped and brainwashed by a brigand.  What complicates this is two things:  Believing Psyche was crazy, which the text takes several pains to show how clear and pragmatic she is and the fact that Orual briefly witnessed the invisible palace.  She convinces herself that it was a hallucination (more logic rationality), but she did see it.  Lewis is trying to connect this to believing in God, the idea that a lot of people intentionally ignore the presence of God or come up with seemingly rational justifications to explain Him away.

This all goes back to Lewis’ trilemma that he adores so much, first presented in “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe”–either Lucy is lying about Narnia, she is crazy, or she is telling the truth.  Either Psyche is lying that she has married a god and lives in an invisible palace, she is crazy, or she is telling the truth.  Either Jesus is lying about being the son of God, is crazy, or is telling the truth–Lewis flips his myths and symbols all over the place in the book, which is part of what makes it so fascinating.  Psyche goes from representing humanity in the presence of God to Jesus sacrificing herself for her kingdom, and then Orual undergoes her own symbolic myth.  

So basically, the whole argument between Psyche and Orual is partially an argument about the existence of God.  Yes, Lewis does use sex to convey religious truths which may seem squiffy to some and it may not work wholly–but I kind of appreciate his attempt at something that is said to be a sacred sacrament (sex on the marital bed) and focusing in on it squarely in fiction and trying to convey an important aspect of Christianity through it.