#like we have this repeated bias of the brother pov who is some sort of outsider for a hamfisted reason

[the-owl-tree]

(Feel free to ignore this if you’re sick of Nightheart discourse, I don’t blame you)

The thing about Nightheart is that if he was written by basically any other writer then he’d just be subjugated to a comic relief type character. Angsty ‘not a phase’ teenager who gets hit hard by reality in the second act and comes to appreciate his family by the end.

But Nightheart written by the Erins who are convinced he’s the specialist little guy and the people around him are just mean :( and it’s just such a boring way to write a character like him. Ironically they act like he’s Firestar more then anyone in Thunderclan.

this'll be the last ask i take for this dude lol im just gonna use ur ask to sort of explain my thoughts more

the thing about nightheart is he is right up my alley as a character (i am a certified Lightleap Enjoyer characters who do stupid things are very fun), but like.....there's just waaaayy too much shit ingrained in his writing for me to like him, you know? rookflower made a good post pointing out the issues being discussed so this is me basically adding onto this but you know

-he's not a teen, he's a young adult at this point so the angsty teen thing just isn't a thang for this dude. every book he gets older and older and the "im not orange thing" becomes increasingly stupid. this isn't a kid lashing out, this is a young adult who is being written as if he has actually being wronged in some way.

-his writing hinges on him being wronged in some way, that Squirrelflight, Sparkpelt, and all of the other she-cats in the introduction have actually done something they need to atone for. isn't it strange that the first book is them being treated as nagging harpies while Bramblestar (the guy who manipulates him) is this understanding and relatable grandfather to him who understands him like no one else? why write that?

-to which, this isn't some intentional commentary on bramblestar for being a manipulative dickhead, the writers actually give him credit for pairing up Sunbeam and Nightheart when it was actually Squirrelflight.

-*hands on my hips* like isn't that weeeiiirrrrdd? weird that we have an arc that unfairly blames she-cats and then gives credit to the male characters around them for shit they don't do? like isn't that just a weeeee bit strange to some of you?

-this is a series that holds she-cats, and specifically mothers, to a higher level of scrutiny than its male characters. Sparkpelt's treatment by the narrative does not exist in a vacuum, why is the narrative saying she named her son for her own ambition? why is her being exiled treated as a slight against Nightheart? why is her ppd (which was already something squirrelflight's hope used to reflect poorly on the character) being used to boost her son's arc?

[warsofasoiaf]

Per @goodqueenaly, the Blackwood v. Bracken feud has never been portrayed with nuance. Throughout the history we have read, the Blackwoods are always protagonists while the Brackens are always antagonists. Yes, that’s remarkable considering the families are supposed to be related due to so much intermarriage, but that’s what we get. Don’t you think it’s time to give up hope when GRRM has already shown us what he intends to do with this? Simply put, the feud is entirely shallow ...

And by shallow, I do mean that it is literally shallow. For instance, Bloodraven is made to “look cool” while I can hardly remember what Bittersteel looks like. Barba is meant to be “buxom” and “seductive” while Melissa is thin and model-like with a beautiful face. All Barba has are her breasts. Jonos Bracken could not have been Harry’s father because Harry was good-looking and since Tytos is the protagonist here, we are to believe him. The degree of shallowness here is stunning.

So while I love your essays, don’t you think you have looked at it with more nuance than what GRRM actually wrote? Even the Dance of Dragons wasn’t that nuanced. GRRM had a clear favorite in this conflict and while a few blacks may have been morally questionable, there is no mistaking that they were objectively better at everything than the greens and in that conflict we see how much better the Blackwoods are, too. Don’t forget Benjicot the 11-year-old military genius, which was plain ridiculous

And to be clear, there have been a few clearly bad vs. good wars in history. WWII, for example, but even then you had, for instance, some Russian soldiers on the good side committing mass rape. I think GRRM promises WWI and gives the opposite. However, this comparison doesn’t even make sense because Blackwood and Bracken are just families. You can’t choose your family, so it makes no sense for all Brackens to be bad and all Blackwoods to be good all throughout history. Yet that is what he wrote.

Recently, I mentioned how the point of the Blackfyre Rebellion seems to exist to justify the stigmatization of bastards. I thought of how Ramsay does as well. Domeric Bolton, clearly a good person, was killed by his bastard brother Ramsay. Ramsay also happens to be the epitome of evil. Jon Snow, our bastard protagonist, probably will turn out not to be a bastard at all. Is GRRM doing this unintended? Because it comes across as bad to me.

And you can counter it by saying that Daeron the Good had his bastard brother Bloodraven on his side, but I don’t feel like that is a counter to my point. Bloodraven, while fighting for the “good side,” is still a kinslaying, tyrannical child murderer and while the majority of the fan base admires him, the same can’t be said of the Westerosi in-universe. They hate him.

This might be my first six-parter. That isn’t a criticism or a complaint, the content here is thoughtful, the arguments coherent, and the questions excellent. I’ll try to address these issues one at a time, from top to bottom.

I will continue to maintain optimism because I know GRRM is capable of portraying a conflict with nuance and depth. I circle back to the painful reckonings Dunk has in The Sworn Sword and the repeated portrayals of Bloodraven’s tyranny. It undermines a great deal of the thematic points if Bloodraven becomes a monster, but the Blacks are to a man awful, because it justifies Bloodraven’s tyranny and misrule.

Now, I don’t argue that the Bracken-Blackwood feud has really not been done well so far, and has been shallow and one-sided. The slightest hint we get of it is “The Encyclopedia that Rides” Hoster Blackwood discussing how there were marriage pacts and constant land squabbles, but we never see the Blackwoods be the aggressors. Even when dealing with the Teats, it’s Aegon IV who takes them and gives them to House Blackwood in a moment of fitful caprice, not the Blackwoods who schmooze their access to the royal person. 

Where I’m hoping that changes is the story that makes Pennytree into a royal fief. Ideally, the resolution will be Aegon V stopping a conflict over Pennytree and its shifted overlordship by making it a royal fief in honor of the deceased Ser Arlan. I don’t doubt that the Brackens will be portrayed as schemers, you don’t get a name like “the Brute of Bracken” for being an enlightened and thoughtful individual. I might be succumbing to wishful thinking, working backwards from the resolution in a way that satisfies me.

I also agree with you that the Dance was very poorly done. But the War of the Five Kings was done much better. I’m not going to pretend that I have some sort of magic Batphone to GRRM so that I could tell him that I thought the Dance was poorly done, even if sometimes I wish I did. I think GRRM sometimes has a problem with sticking the landing, of creating characters he wants to root for, and a love of lurid spectacle that doesn’t necessarily correlate to authenticity. Same with Robert’s Rebellion. No one disagrees that Robert was a pretty trash person when you get right down to it, but when it came to the aftermath of the First Blackfyre and Robert’s Rebellion, only one of them had lingering animosity where “red or black was a dangerous question, even now.” 

I’m not so sure the “all bastards are bastards” mentality sticks. Even if Jon ends up not being one (which I don’t believe will happen), we’ve got plenty of bastards who are good. Addam of Hull, Cotter Pyke, these lesser bastards don’t get as much play as someone like the Bastard of Bolton, but I think their existence shows that GRRM is thinking about it, even if he falls into the authorial trap of wanting to create conflict because it’s more interesting.

So, I agree with a lot of your points, and I think it’s good that we criticize when we feel things fall short. Maybe I’m just an optimist, but I think the things that Dunk experiences, combined with the short snippets we get about Haegon being “treacherously slain” by a POV who would have no real reason to be favorable towards the Blackfyres (and perfectly willing to bias his conclusions) will bear out.

If I’m wrong, so be it. I’ll be disappointed and you can say I told you so. But, and forgive me for assuming, I think we’d both prefer a better outcome than that.

Thanks for the longform analysis and questions, Anon. You should think about compiling them into an essay, you have a good head on your shoulders.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King