#robb being KING IN THE NORTH YO

[malyen0retsev]

Season 3 is the best Game of Thrones season and always will be, and I will fight you on this tbh

[hellsbellschime]

Do you think Jon hold some love and affection for Dany? It's hard to analyse as in s7 Jon suddenly started to fall for her after she came to rescue him when in previous episode he tell her they were strangers​. In s8 there was scene after dragon ride their first kiss was romantic before he got scared. In ep4 when Dany says she loves him the kiss was romantic. But otherwise the framing and chemistry was awful.

Honestly? No, not really. Jon’s character in the later seasons somehow managed to be both a clusterfuck and a snoozefest, but ultimately falling in love with Dany is just not something I think Jon would have ever been capable of.

I mean, the massively consistent aspects of Jon’s character that have always existed within him no matter what are that A. he loves his family more than anything, B. he has literally devoted his life to protecting the North, and C. he idolizes, wants to be like, and is more similar to Ned than any of the Stark children. So let’s think about that in the context of Jon’s meeting with Dany and his entire relationship with Dany. 

So Jon does something astoundingly stupid that no other king or queen would do, he goes to Dragonstone with zero information about Dany aside from the fact that she is incredibly powerful and about to invade Westeros/destroy the Lannisters. Taking down the Lannisters would be plus in Jon’s book, but I don’t know that that’s enough for him to not be massively concerned about her being an insanely powerful invader. He takes a horrible risk on the complete long shot that he can convince Dany to come North and save his family and his people, because that is how important it is to him. 

And what is Dany’s reaction to that? She not only says she won’t help unless he submits to her, someone who he literally just met who appears to be the most dangerous person on the planet in terms of raw power, but she literally takes him hostage despite the fact that Jon is so comparatively powerless. She immediately makes it clear that he’s a rebel and essentially that she’s probably not going to even let him leave until he bends the knee. And what’s worse (which is actually Tyrion’s fault but is something they never clarify and I can’t imagine Jon not loathing her for) is that he was brought there under false pretenses. The letter that Dany sent him inviting him to Dragonstone asked him to “join her to end Cersei’s tyranny,” he didn’t hear shit about bending the knee immediately until he met Dany and literally five seconds after he walked into the room she demanded that he bend the knee. 

At this point it’s not as if Jon doesn’t understand political theater at this point, but right off the bat Dany breaks every rule of Westerosi custom and imprisons a literal king to demand that he submit to her or let EVERYTHING HE LOVES DIE while he’s a helpless prisoner. This is the FIRST thing Jon ever learns about Dany. And while Tyrion says that he’s being unreasonable for expecting immediate help and expecting to be believed, it’s like yeah except LITERALLY THE WHOLE ASS REASON HE’S HERE is because Melisandre showed up and was like yo you gotta talk to this kid Jon Snow he’s seen some wild shit and then when he shows up and is like “I’ve seen some wild shit” everyone’s like well clearly you’re insane so we’re putting you in a time out until you return to sanity and bend the knee to a complete stranger. Also not to fucking mention, unless nobody on the island ever brings this shit up, Jon also immediately learns what kind of an ally Dany is because every one of Dany’s other allies is either killed or CAPTURED and she’s just like well bummer for them guess I have to accept that as a loss or wait for them to rescue themselves even though I have three dragons and the biggest army in the world and instead of saving them I can just try to force this new guy to become my “ally” instead (and if the whole political motivation for Jon’s relationship with her stems from this it would make complete sense because he should already know that even those who submit to Dany don’t get her protection or assistance if it doesn’t serve her purpose, so he HAS to get her to feel like he’s more than just her ally).

And despite being obsessed with his bastardy, Jon values nothing more than he values his family, and Dany constantly undervalues, insults, or completely writes off Jon’s family. I actually think that’s understandable from Dany’s perspective because she only knows of familial abuse, but there is no world in which I can believe Jon would take her ignoring the fact that Robb literally died to free his people, or implying that Ned was cool with goddamn child murder, or accusing Sansa of being an evil schemer because she’s angling to keep the North free very well, and two of those three things are things she does the first time she ever speaks to Jon. 

And finally, Jon wants to BE Ned. That is literally the person he has admired and emulated more than anyone, to the point where it’s almost an unhealthy obsession for him. Jon knows that Ned would choose to do the right thing over pretty much everything else. Jon knows that Ned is the type of person who would die saving the children of his enemies. I cannot fathom a world in which he would even consider loving anyone who let thousands of innocent people die for their own political gains. But again, Daenerys makes it clear the very first time that he meets her that that’s what is happening right now. She’s willing to use “her kingdom” as a political pawn that she won’t have a second thought about sacrificing in order to gain Jon’s submission. I think there was a chance that he could have truly liked her or even loved her if she just hadn’t come in so insanely hot the very first time that they met, but frankly the very first moment that they meet she shows Jon that she is exactly like Cersei, she will literally use an existential threat to all life as a tool to her political advantage regardless of the fact that it is a fucking EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO ALL LIFE. 

So I think no, there is zero chance that Jon could ever love a person like that, and I think that legit the minute that he met her he put himself in a completely political mindset and was willing to do whatever he had to do to get Dany to actually help him. I just cannot imagine a world in which Jon freaking Snow would even feel a shred of respect or non-dislike towards someone who would do that, let alone liking them or loving them, and I sincerely think that within their first conversation Dany ensured that Jon would never have any real feelings for her. I understand why so many people are confused by their relationship because it is confusing as fuck, but I actually feel like D&D very absurdly overtly put so much shit that Jon would absolutely loathe into their relationship straight off the bat that regardless of anything that happened afterwards I just cannot fathom Jon Snow essentially overlooking every single thing he hates or has no respect for in this world to realize that Dany is actually the one true benevolent queen, or even a halfway likable person in his eyes. 

[warsofasoiaf]

This is probably a massive question masquerade as a small one, but what are major and likely changes to canon that comes about if Stannis is given Storm's End while Renly gets Dragonstone?

Oh, it’s not masquerading as anything, it straight up is a massive game-changer. Storm’s End factors so significantly into the Stannis plotline, which itself touches Eddard’s plot in AGOT and the Northern plot in ACOK.

First, the basics. Stannis receiving Storm’s End likely changes a good deal about Stannis, because he sees the direct cause-effect of his service to Robert being recognized and rewarded. This is no longer a man who smolders and grudge-seeks as we see him in the early novels, but one far more open and receptive to Robert and his clique, even if it’s likely that he still retains a personality much different than Robert’s. He’s likely still sore about Jaime retaining the White and likely still endeavors to end corruption in the court which will end in frustration when Robert permits it, though. Assuming his children situation still remains as normal (likely), the Red Priestess will likely still join his court, but he’d probably name Shireen the heir to Storm’s End citing the precedent of Argella. Renly on Dragonstone would probably need to have a castellan to take charge and start ferreting out loyalists to the Targaryen cause; Cortnay Penrose seems like a good choice. How Renly changes given the much more austere touches of Dragonstone is a good question. Would he still maintain his personality if the charmed lifestyle he led in Storm’s End isn’t quite so charmed? Without the knowledge of how he grew up, that is difficult to speculate.

When the plot happens, Stannis has much more resources to call on as with Jon Arryn, which could potentially mean an early discovery but that’s iffy. Baelish is still wanting to ensure that it can’t be discovered and he’s the ultimate culprit behind the Jon Arryn murder. However, even if Stannis retreats to Storm’s End just as he did to Dragonstone, he’s closer to King’s Landing and likely could be corresponded with quickly (Eddard would probably use couriers to get into contact if he distrusted Pycelle). Renly is still in court, so he’s likely maintaining the Tyrell connection and the Margaery plot probably proceeds as normal. 

Assuming Robert’s murder happens successfully, Stannis starts in a much stronger position and Renly in a much weaker one. With more resources, Stannis can make the incest much more public knowledge by sending out his riders yo far more towns and villages, eroding Lannister support with the rumors. Stannis, with the troops of the Stormlands at his disposal, is close to the capital and can credibly threaten Joffrey. With Robb marching south, that puts the Lannisters in a bad position; dealing with Robb in the north potentially means that Stannis marches north and puts himself toward Tywin’s rear. As Stannis would be in the field instead of on Dragonstone, and with Stannis possessing “the right” as Robb outlines at the end of AGOT, it’s possible that the Northern independence plotline doesn’t fire, since Stannis is acting the way a king should. Renly no longer has his bandwagon effect, so Mace might not move forward with declaring Renly as king, since it’s less likely to be seen as a sure bet. In that case, it’s a war between Stannis and the Lannisters for the most part, and if Robb rescues Edmure in OTL, he can march east and pen up Tywin while Stannis sieges the capital. If that happens, Stannis wins, Robb and Edmure swear fealty, and Mace probably pushes for Stannis to set aside Selyse for Margaery to sire a male heir. That hurts Varys’s plans, especially since likely as not Stannis won’t retain Varys as spymaster and would probably have him executed as a traitor. Doran’s plans wither on the vine as Stannis consolidates and makes the conditions less likely for Aegon VI’s invasion. And what that means with the Others is anyone’s guess.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[rumaan]

Also whilst I’m on this topic, can fandom stop screaming at the North for being dumb. Like you cannot be all “ooh the North Remembers, Bitch!” when it comes to House Bolton and House Frey and conveniently forget that yeah the North fucking remembers when it comes to House Targaryen, too. 

The last time the North had any dealings with House Targaryen, a daughter of House Stark went missing, both the Lord of Winterfell and his heir were then murdered in the most horrendous way in Kings Landing in front of the entire court and the only reason Ned Stark wasn’t killed was because Jon Arryn refused to turn him over to King Aerys. Its not even as if this was over a century or something ago either - it happened in the lifetime of anyone who’s like 20 yo and up!

It makes perfect sense for the North to view Dany with suspicion. I’m not saying that it’s necessarily right but a region that has a bad recent history with House Targaryen and is still licking its wounds after losing so many people in the war of the Five Kings and the treachery of the Red Wedding is going to be suspicious of a Queen they don’t know claiming sovereignty over them. After all, it’s not like Jon and Dany trusted each other immediately either - it took months and attraction for them to finally trust each other. Plus, as much as I love and adore Robb Stark, it's not like the North has good reason to trust a King in the North in love to make the best decisions for the region in a whole.

[seawolvesanddragons]

GOT Anastasia AU

How is there not a billion Anastasia Aus for game of thrones ?

Like for one the Arya and Gendry practically live out the same plot, just threw in amnesia. Like, Gendry and Hot Pie trying to conivnce this little tomboy shes a princess and she has to go meet her cousin Jon, the one survivor of her family, but first they have to teach her how to be a lady and GOD that is hard and where did she get this sword and why does she have this list of names that she remembers she has to kill but not know why and god at this point Cersei is the least of their problems.

Robb and Theon one where Theon just wants to get the fuck away from the north and all the memories of being tortured by ramsay after he helped the prince escape but to do that he and Jeyne need money and hey did you hear that the the Starks uncle is offering a reward? Grab some redhead kid and lets go. Except naturally Ramsay is tracking his lost pet and Walder Frey doesn't want any chance that this young wolf survived so he's also after them and Jeyne is sick of all the UST Dammit.

Sansa and Margeary where an amnesiac Sansa has been held by Little finger since she was 12, escapes and runs into Margeary and her brother Loras who are like hey, we're 90 percent sure youre the lost princess Cersei and Joffrey are looking for, not sure if its to marry to make their claim legit or to kill to make their claim legit, but come with us anyways. Your cousin Jon is alive and looking for you. By the way, you're super cute, mind if we hook up? (They have the smoothest journey by far)

Jon as the lost prince where he was raised Targaryan but the white walkers killed them all. Amnesiac orphan Jon was sent to the wall but after ten years or falls to the night king. He runs and falls in with Ygritte and Tormund who both are trying to flee to safety to Winterfell, but know that as wildings they will need a reason yo persuade the Starks to let them stay. Their long lost nephew, Ygritte thinks, is a good enough reason, and this crow boy seems desperate enough to believe her. So they go, with Ygritte and Jon arguing all the time and Jon resolutely saying he hates red heads then wondering why he remembers so many and also why is this wolf following them and at one point the walkers the night king sends after them are destroyed by Jon throwing fire sticks at Them and he doesn't get burned? Also Tormund keeps trying to get them to walk faster cause he wants to see Lady Brienne, sworn knight of Lady Catelyn.

[lady-ginnie]

Watching Game of Thrones for the first time.

I started watching it years ago, but only got about halfway through season 1 before life got in the way (and I lost my HBO subscription). I’d heard the final season was airing, and I wanted to see what all the hype was about, so I started watching it again through Hulu. I’m halfway through season 4 now, so no spoilers, please! But I have a few thoughts based on what I’ve seen so far.

1) Incest. Gross. Really, Jaime and Cersei? REALLY?

2) If anyone ever hurts Sansa again, I will personally go through my tv screen and rip their head off. She is a beautiful girl who deserves the world, and I just want to give her a hug and make her feel safe again.

3) Littlefinger is a slimy snake, and I’m hoping he’ll die soon.

4) I ADORE TYRION. I would die for him.

5) I was never happier to see a character die than when Joffrey bit the dust. I usually don’t like to see children die, but he was such a deplorable little shit that I was happy to see him go. Looked terribly painful though, I wish he could have gone a bit quicker.

6) Am I the only one who really, really doesn’t like Ygritte? I know she has quite a few fans, but I find her grating.

7) I’d put my money on Arya in a fight against the Hound any day. She’s such an amazing little badass, and I’d never want to find myself on her bad side.

8) Again, I know Jaime has a lot of fans, but I really don’t like him. I know he’s trying to become a better person, and I love his relationships with Tyrion and Brienne, but the only thing I see when I look at him is the man who shoved a 10 year old boy off the top of the tower so he wouldn’t get caught fucking his own sister. What are the chances Bran even understood what they were doing?? He was a kid, dude!

9) I don’t like Jon Snow. I don’t hate him, but I find him very boring and generic as far as heroes go. Sam, on the other hand, is adorable and I love him.

10) Craster is disgusting. So is Walder Frey.

11) I’m very confused as to how Theon wound up getting tortured, and why it happened? What interest do the Boltons have in him again? I know I missed something there, because I spent that entire story arc confused and wishing they’d just kill poor Theon rather than keep up with the torture. That was brutal. And with that being said, that Ramsey guy? Needs to die.

12) I first saw Mackenzie Crook in Pirates of the Caribbean, so seeing him in GoT as a Wildling made me chuckle a bit.

13) Stannis’ daughter? The girl with the scars on her face? I don’t remember her name, but she is a complete sweetheart, and I’m really worried that her crazy mom or the Red Woman is going to convince Stannis to sacrifice her to the scary as fuck fire god. I worry for her safety.

14) Poor, poor Jorah. Forever friendzoned.

15) Drogo was HOT. And despite how terribly it started out, his relationship with Dany was one of my favorites.

16) Daenarys is probably the most well written character in the series, honestly, but something about her rubs me the wrong way. Not sure what.

17) I actually really like the Hound.

18) I actually really like Varys.

19) The Red Woman is terrifying, but honestly? I’d let her fuck me. Crazy she may be, but she’s also very, very hot.

20) I was very upset to see Ros die. I really liked her.

21) Brienne is amazing. I’m getting very Aveline-esque vibes from her (from Dragon Age 2), but while I was never big on Aveline, I actually really like Brienne. She’s an honorable, badass woman.

22) I adored the whole Renly/Loras relationship. I hate that Renly died. Loras deserves happiness, yo!

23) Bronn is so cool. I want a friend like Bronn.

24) Can I just say, I actually kinda ship Sansa/Margaery?

25) Olenna Tyrell is the most awesome old woman in the series. I love her love and adoration for her family, to the point that she’s willing to kill a King to keep her grandkids safe. Only thing I wish is that Tyrion didn’t have to take the fall for that.

26) Ned Stark’s death was the singular most scarring moment in the series for me. I think it had something to do with his daughters being there to witness it all (though Arya was shielded from it, I suppose).

27) That Red Wedding, though. I’d heard about it. Didn’t expect that.

28) Like Jon, I found Robb to be a very boring character. I was not happy to see him die, by any means, but I didn’t really like the guy. I really liked his wife, though, she was a sweetheart.

29) What’s going on with Bran? Aside from him being a Warg, I’m extremely confused as to where his story arc is going.

30) Where the fuck did Osha and Rickon go? They just disappeared!

31) If anyone hurts Hodor, I swear to the gods...

32) Why did the Night’s Watch go over the Wall again? Again, like with Theon’s story arc, I really missed something there. What was the point of going north?

33) Cat’s sister was nuts in a terrifying, yet also hilarious kind of way. How old was the little boy she was still breastfeeding??? Gross.

34) Wildfire is terrifying. That is all.

35) What happened to Cat’s brother and his wife at the Red Wedding? Did Walder Frey really have his own daughter killed...?

36) Grey Worm and Missandei? I ship it.

37) I love the theme song. I would be my new ringtone if I didn’t already love my current ringtone so much (my current ringtone is This is Me, from The Greatest Showman; best song in the movie).

I’m nearly done with season 4, and I’ve only been watching for just over a week. I’m excited to see where the story goes, and where the characters wind up. I’m extremely excited to see who will sit on the Iron Throne that’s caused all this trouble. I have a lot of friends who have been saying how excited they are each Sunday for the next episode, and they’ve all been kind enough not to post spoilers about it, which is nice. I know through trailers and promotional pictures that Sansa, Arya, Tyrion, and Dany are all alive as of season 8, but I want to see how they get there. NO SPOILERS HERE, PLEASE! I’m watching this for the first time, remember. Just had to write some of my thoughts down, in my excitement.

[mysnowdragons]

Hey! So I was debating with people who strongly believed that Sansa had a claim on WF (as Robb's heir) even after the Bolton were named Warden of the North, while Daenerys's claim to the IT was non-existent since the Targaryen claim was supplanted and deposed by the GC after Robert's rebellion. But I'm confused... weren't both claims (Stark and Targaryen) legally overthrown? Wasn't it the Crown who granted the Bolton wardenship of the North? Or is it 2 different situations altogether?

Hmm. OK, this required some thought! I’m not sure what they were referring to with the GC (Golden Company? The Blackfyre claimants on the Iron Throne pretty much ended with the end of the War of the Ninepenny Kings, right? The male line ended then. Fake Aegon is most likely a Blackfyre descendent from the female line, but he’s not being presented as a Blackfyre, he’s being presented as someone from the main Targaryen line.)

I want to start by saying this is guesswork based on customs depicted in the books and on the show, and that I think the only person who can really answer this with authority is GRRM. And his answer would probably be two sentences long, and might touch on the fact that in the books, Jon is the heir Robb designates, not Sansa. I really don’t think he’d agree that Dany has reason to believe that her claim on the throne is nonexistent, or that Sansa’s claim on Winterfell is somehow better.

I think you’re right that it’s the same situation, for a couple of reasons. If not, I think Dany’s claim on the Iron Throne is slightly stronger than Sansa’s claim on Winterfell, but they’re VERY similar.

First of all, I’m not a professional medievalist or an expert on medieval English Common Law. I’m also not sure that matters here, since in one case we’re talking about fiction and the other we’re talking about history. One major difference between the world of ASOIAF and Actual Medieval England is that there was a lot more… legalism in Actual Medieval England. Law courts were a bigger thing. It does seem like lords fulfill a legalistic function in ASOIAF, and to some extent they also did in medieval England. But there’s an entire structure of law courts in history that seems to be missing from the world of the story (and that’s a major criticism people who are interested in actual medieval history have of the story’s pseudo-historicity).

I can say that I’ve read about something that touches on this a little – not with regard to great lords, who could be stripped of their lands and titles by the Crown, but with regard to real estate disputes. It comes up in the Paston letters (basically, one of the major extant archives of late medieval personal writing) and in Frances and Joseph Gies’s book about them, A Medieval Family. It happens that the letters were written in the years around 1450, so they’re pretty much ground zero for the period that most people pinpoint as the closest historical inspiration for ASOIAF’s setting. It’s not the same scenario at all, but interested parties might enjoy reading about the dispute between John Paston and Lord Moleyns over Gresham Castle, specifically the part where Moleyns basically just showed up with a gang of thugs and kicked Margaret Paston out of the place because he felt like it.

In the case of ASOIAF, though, I think we’re talking more about whether or not a king can strip a high lord of lands and titles and whether it works the other way around. It’s complicated, because medieval kingship was more of a tit for tat relationship in which the authority of kings came from the support of the people rather than a perception of a divine right. Kings were (to an extent) expected to keep their side of the deal, and this is also how it seems to be portrayed in the books. (A lot of what people think they know about the historical middle ages is actually stuff they know about the Renaissance and a little later that wasn’t actually true in the medieval period – but even in the medieval period you had bad kings, you had the French nobility getting a little too close to the Pope and also thinking of peasants as subhuman, you had kings whose taxation was out of control, and so on. A lot of deposed kings were deposed by nobles or by competitive relatives, though, not rioting commoners. 

The one thing I have to confess to not knowing for sure is if there was a time in Westerosi history between the establishment of the Iron Throne and the events of the story when the king might have wanted to strip one of the high lords (one of the former royal houses of each kingdom, or someone almost as prominent like the Hightowers) of lands and title. I’m not going to take the time now to look up, say, whether or not Rhaenyra tried to penalize the Hightower family for her enmity with Alicent during the Dance of the Dragons, because it seems to me like it would be a tangent, and this is already a long answer that took me a few hours to write. I will say that the only time I can think off of the top of my head when one of the Great Houses might have really been in danger of being stripped of lands and titles by the Iron Throne was Robert’s Rebellion – if Robert had lost. (And the reason I have this impression, of course, is that all these houses have a history that goes back to or before the time of Aegon’s Conquest. They’ve all pretty much been ruling their individual regions for at least as long as there’s been an Iron Throne.)

So, let’s assume it’s a thing whoever sits on the Iron Throne can hypothetically do, but it may be unwise. It also requires military strength to do it: you have to be able to either undermine the loyalty of the vassals serving the lord you want to oust (as Jaime and Cersei successfully do with Randyll Tarly in the show when they want to get rid of House Tyrell) or have enough troops or some other way to defeat their army (it happens dishonorably in the book and the show, but this is basically what’s happening when troops loyal to Robb Stark are massacred at The Twins during the Red Wedding). You can do what Cersei did and Dany thought she was doing and send a letter warning the lord you’re displeased with to knock it off, which is the equivalent of firing a warning shot, but unless you literally show up at their gate with an army or find some other way of physically stopping them, the lords are pretty much gonna do what the lords are gonna do. The better lords try not to do stuff that their vassals will suffer for, though, and all of them are subjects of the Iron Throne because they’re descendents of people who chose to swear fealty to Aegon I and his descendents. Part of that is essentially an understanding that the lords are not going to behave like they still think they’re petty kings: the ultimate authority lies with the crown.

And that’s a big thing. In this kind of arrangement, the king owns the entire country. Lords are granted authority over huge areas of land, which they parcel out to pettier lords who owe fealty to them, and so on down the line. In exchange for the land and the lordship, the great lords generally have to give the king military support and some of what their lands have produced, or a percentage of the profits from production, and that also is reflected straight down the line to local situations, where a farmer gives the lord a percentage of what he produces. Meanwhile, the king is supposed to protect his vassals, work in their best interests, etc.: an example of this protection is food being shipped into the North by the Iron Throne in winter several times since the Conquest, saving the North from famine.

There is no standing royal army in Westeros: the nation’s military force comes from bannermen who are vassals of the lords, who may themselves be vassals to greater lords, who are themselves vassals to the Crown. A lord will typically be supported by his own troops if he doesn’t mistreat them, and it’s how Tywin Lannister was able to sit out most of Robert’s Rebellion: he was commanded to send his troops to support the Targaryen side and just… didn’t. His troops didn’t fight in the war until they went to sack King’s Landing.

Daenerys’s claim on the Iron Throne is similar to Sansa’s claim on Winterfell in that each of those two things originated with their family: there was no Iron Throne or united Seven Kingdoms prior to the Targaryen Conquest of Westeros. Likewise, legend has it that the Starks built Winterfell thousands of years earlier, and it has remained in the family. I think they differ, and Dany’s claim on the Iron Throne becomes far stronger than Sansa’s claim on Winterfell, at the point where the King-Who-Knelt is taken into account. Essentially, at that point, the government of the North made itself a vassal of the Iron Throne. Ned did not even consider ending this when the Targaryen dynasty ended: it’s unquestionable that he regarded the vassalship as ongoing. That means that Torrhen Stark essentially ceded Winterfell to Aegon I, but that he and his heirs were allowed to continue to live in it in exchange for fulfulling their obligations.

From the point of view of Joffrey’s government, Ned is a traitor, and his son Robb is an even greater traitor for essentially attempting to secede from the Seven Kingdoms and calling himself a king. Giving Winterfell to the Boltons (because the Starks are clearly not loyal vassals of the Iron Throne) would most likely legally vacate any Stark claims on it, though doing so is utterly without respect for tradition. This is a rebel family’s properties being stripped by a crown that they were subjects to, and ultimately the enforcement comes down to who is more powerful… and in this case, Tywin Lannister is far more powerful than Robb Stark. So, goodbye, Robb, and hello to the Boltons, Lords of Winterfell and good and loyal Wardens of the North. 

It doesn’t matter that most of the rest of the North hates you and sees you as illegitimate if you can physically hold on to Winterfell and enforce your rule.

It does matter if, say, Ned Stark’s bastard son and trueborn daughter can show up with an army one day and physically remove you from their home in a very permanent way – although doing so is technically an act or rebellion or war against the Iron Throne. At this point I’d leave it up to individual interpretation whether the Starks are still vassals of the Iron Throne, because the Starks and the Lannisters certainly seem to have differing opinions of it. 

But Jon and Dany do not: Jon has renewed the vassalship. And Dany’s approach to the throne is the typical medieval one: if you have reason to believe you are the rightful heir to a throne, set up a court, start using the title, get some armies. You’ll either die or be imprisoned trying to take it, or you’ll win it, or you’ll get away without winning it and call yourself the Queen-In-Exile until your death.

Discussing Sansa’s “claim” is complicated in that she has at least one living trueborn brother, which leaves her with little legal claim at all in the long run. We’ll set that aside for the moment, though, since Bran isn’t known to be alive at the point in the story that we’re discussing (Rickon may also be a consideration in the books). Sansa is powerful in the North as a symbol, which is why she’s married to Ramsay Bolton in the show and why Fake Arya is married to him in the books: it gives a veneer of legitimacy to the Lannister-assisted Bolton takeover of the North. It says to remaining Stark loyalists that this is the best they can do, now that the male Stark line is gone. 

(And this, along with what you see regarding the Blackfyres in Westerosi history, is why various characters regard Jon as a huge threat even though he’s in the Night’s Watch and stuck at the edge of the world, presumably permanently. A bastard son has no claim, but when the Starks are symbolically powerful period, and there are no more male Starks, in a society where being male matters when it comes to power, inheritance, and governance, then the bastard son is still a problem for anyone who wants to supplant the Starks, in a way that he wouldn’t have been if he still had known living brothers.)

Dany’s situation is different. People talk a lot about Right of Conquest as if that’s a legal scenario, and it’s not: it’s essentially “Yeah, and who’s gonna stop me? I have the biggest army and possibly also possession of the best fortresses. I am the law.” The vast majority of historical royal dynasties started that way, though once in a while there’s a story about a national hero being acclaimed king. And in the real world, even when thrones are abolished, there are still living claimants. It’s complicated! In any case, Right of Conquest = Might Makes Right.

If someone believes that it was OK for Robert, who had only a very distant claim on the throne through a Targaryen woman marrying into his family line a few generations earlier, to claim the throne by conquest, why is it then wrong for Daenerys, the daughter of the king he deposed, to reclaim it by conquest? Why would her claim be nonexistent? If someone really wants to make a comparison to Sansa’s situation with Winterfell, Daenerys’s claim on the Red Keep and Dragonstone is very similar: her family built them, and they were the family homes. 

But the difference is that to me, Sansa’s claim was lost in a much more legal way than Daenerys’s. Sansa’s older brother rebelled unsuccessfully; Daenerys had a mentally ill father, and her brother, the capable and relatively stable heir, was killed in battle. Us acknowledging that Aerys sucked and that deposing him was the right thing to do, and rolling our eyes at the thought of birthright or inheritance, is a contemporary viewpoint that isn’t coming from people who grew up in a feudal monarchic system. The correct way to deal with Aerys in that time and place would have been to install Rhaegar as regent, not to kill Rhaegar in battle, then kill his wife and children, then install your own guy as king. And Brandon Stark fucked it up for everyone!

(Again, not getting into “but Rhaegar and Lyanna!” – because I’ve seen debates about how much Brandon and Rickard knew about what was going on, and because it seems to me like the actual turning point was hotheaded Brandon storming down to King’s Landing to try to pick a fight with Rhaegar.)

I think Robert absolutely did usurp the Iron Throne, but there are a ton of considerations that go into discussion of that that I don’t feel like getting into here: I’ll cut to the chase and say that I don’t think he had much choice after Aerys demanded his head. Robert landed on the throne largely through the consequences of the series of events that followed, in which he tended to take whichever option wasn’t “surrender and be killed” or “support Rhaegar.”

But I’ll also say that if Robert had been fully convinced of the legitimacy of his own rule and dynasty, and if the people around him had been, Rhaenys and Aegon would not have been killed, and Dany would not have been targeted for assassination once she became pregnant.

Robert thought she had a claim, and Robert feared it. And Robert was the king on the Iron Throne at the time – the ultimate lawmaker and enforcer. If even he feared that she or her children might try to take the throne back for the Targaryen line, then you can definitely assume it was a risk, esp when we’re in a situation where the throne can be taken by force, and that at least some of the people would have seen her as legitimate. 

(I mean, Targaryen loyalists still exist in the world of the story: it’s actually part of why Alliser Thorne hates Jon Snow. Ned was instrumental in deposing the Targaryens, Jon is his son, and Thorne is at the Wall because of his loyalty to the old dynasty. And there are people who drink Secret Toasts To Dany’s Health in the books, in a way that makes it seem like it’s not limited to the small group of people (Sarella/Alleras’s cronies at the Citadel) who are shown doing it.)

So, Dany also has potential power as a symbol, enough that her mere existence a thousand miles or more away from him gets under Robert’s skin and that he fears the possibility of her children having any kind of military command of the Dothraki – note that Robert was really more concerned about her having a son than about Dany herself. Her claim isn’t really legal, per se, any more than his was, and what parts of it seem legal will be nonexistent if Jon is openly established as Rhaegar’s trueborn son (since a Targaryen woman legally cannot inherit unless there are no male heirs). But it is both traditional and backed up with military might, and it’s not less legal than Sansa’s claim on Winterfell, which was lost through the equivalent of Stark Breach of Contract.

Furthermore, a “claim” when it comes to this particular throne might in some cases be a legal right to it (i.e. when a younger son succeeds to it in spite of having an older sister), but in the sense that it’s typically used with regard to Dany, Viserys, Fake Aegon, etc., it doesn’t mean “a legal right.” It’s more like a reasonable assumption that you’re the heir, and a basis for pursuing the matter further.

Dany’s claim on the Iron Throne is pretty strong, but the strongest claim is to be sitting on it.

[maddie-grove]

The Stark Romance Saga--Book #4: The Maiden of the Riverlands

Previous Installments: Loved I Not Honor More (Book #1, Robb Stark/Jeyne Westerling), The Iron Scoundrel (Book #2, Theon Greyjoy/Asha “Not His Sister in This Universe” Harlaw), Kissing the Kingslayer (Book #2.5, Catelyn Stark/Jaime Lannister), A Fire in Winter (Book #3, Jon Snow/Ygritte), and The Winter Bride (Book #3.5, Samwell Tarly/Gilly).

Note: This installment takes place roughly four years after the end of Sam’s book, which takes place about a year after the end of Jon’s book. Westeros is making progress, albeit slow, in its war against the White Walkers, and there has been a rather cool, brief spring and summer in the meantime. Queen Daenerys is on the throne, although she’s reached a Dornish compromise with the North, making it a principality. Dany’s doing a fine job on the whole, although she’s met with some difficulties, and has a reputation as a fair and kind ruler despite the whole dragon thing.

Other Note: I made Lord Londrew Frey up, because I have no idea which Frey would inherit the Twins after the foiled Red Wedding in Robb’s book. My other thought was making it Big Walder Frey; however, I have a soft spot for that little guy. He may be disturbingly casual about cousin-murder, but he has standards!

The Style

Sweet, drama-filled, and slightly off-kilter 1990s Patricia Gaffney or Susan Wiggs.

The Leads

Nymeria of High Heart (Nan for short), 20 years old, a folk heroine of the Riverlands. With her sword-fighting skills and the help of her direwolf, Sharra, she defends the poor, the weak, and the unprotected from unscrupulous outlaws and cruel lords alike. Dwells in a makeshift cottage near High Heart with only Sharra for company, living partly off the land and partly off the gifts of thankful Riverlanders. Has many friends, including the Brotherhood without Banners, but won’t get too close to anyone. Can’t remember anything before she was fourteen and found herself on the back of a wagon to Castle Black, disguised as a boy. It hurts too much to think about that time, so she’s resolved not to wonder about her past. Really, of course, ARYA STARK.

Gendry, 25 years old, a blacksmith at the inn-turned-orphanage at the crossroads and a member of the Brotherhood without Banners. Less angry than his canon counterpart due to improved circumstances, but still grumpy. An orphan from King’s Landing, he was apprenticed to a blacksmith who abruptly packed him off to join the Night’s Watch. Upset by his master’s rejection and embittered by the atrocities he witnessed in the Riverlands, he found a sense of belonging with the Brotherhood and with the kids who frequently mob him at work. Lately, though, he’s beginning to wonder if he should want more from life. Good friends with Nan, who survived the war alongside him and saved his life a couple of times. 

The Prologue

Shortly after her escape from Sandor Clegane and return to the Brotherhood, an exhausted fifteen-year-old Nan wanders away from the group and has a full-fledged emotional breakdown on a riverbank over everything she’s been through. She only stops crying when a gigantic direwolf approaches her. Instead of eating her, the beast licks her tears away and demands to be petted. Feeling better than she has in a long time, Nan takes the direwolf back to the camp and informs the wary Brotherhood that this is Sharra, named after a witch queen from a song. That night, she dreams about a family in a castle surrounded by snow.

The Set-Up

The Brotherhood without Banners and the Heddle sisters get together and throw a very merry harvest party at the inn at the crossroads. Gendry only goes because he lives there, but is pleasantly surprised to see Nan dancing with an extremely drunk Thoros of Myr. She’s been making herself scarce lately and, while he won’t admit it in so many words, he’s missed her. As they banter, dance, and drink a bit of cider, he also realizes that he’s attracted to her. He resolves to mash down his feelings--she obviously views him as an overbearing older brother and couldn’t possibly be interested--until she calls all his assumptions into question by saying something like, “Yo, nice ass, Gendry.” Long story short, they end up having awesome sex. The next morning, she bids him a cheerful but glib adieu before running back to High Heart, leaving him to wonder if he irrevocably ruined their friendship.

The two don’t speak again until a week later, when Gendry visits Nan’s cottage with news of an interesting matter: Lord Londrew Frey has been cheating his smallfolk by giving them almost no share of the grain that they harvest. Londrew claims that he’s sending the grain to the Night’s Watch to help the war effort, but there’s evidence that he’s selling it overseas instead. Nan agrees to help, although she’s not sure how to do it; she can steal from the Twins and exchange the loot for food for the smallfolk, but that’s only a short-term solution. 

The conversation trails off, and Gendry finally reveals the other reason he came to see her: he wants to talk about That Night and What It Means. He’s halting and awkward. They’ve been friends for a long time, he says, so of course he cares about, um, what happens to her. He knows she never...you know...and what if there’s a child, Nan? He never thought about marrying, but, well... (He doesn’t say that he’s never thought about anything beyond the next task, next meal and next catastrophe until recently, and now he’s not sure how to do it.)

Nan angrily rebuffs him. (She doesn’t say how much she cares about him, how often she thinks about that night, or how badly she longs for a real family. Even if he felt more than friendship and duty, she would lose him eventually, and she can’t stand to lose anyone else.) Stung, Gendry rants about her decision to live all alone in a pile of sticks like a crazy old woods witch. Eventually the rant becomes less “insulting” and more “seriously, are you sleeping at all?” Nan admits that she’s been dreaming more and more about the war and a strange Northern family, one of whom looks like her. In his taciturn way, Gendry expresses sympathy. They watch Sharra play among the weirwood stumps for a while, and then Nan’s face lights up.

“You know,” she says, “someone once thought I looked like a Stark girl.”

The Middle

After an obligatory “wait, WHAT” from Gendry, the two journey to Acorn Hall to get some help from Lady Smallwood, a longtime ally of the Brotherhood. They run into some heartwarming hijinks along the way, mostly brought on by the fact that Nan is beloved by every farmer, prostitute, and orphan in the Riverlands, while Gendry has one of those vibes that make little kids demand that he give them a ride on his shoulders or look at a cool rock they found. Lady Smallwood is pleased to see them and embarrasses Nan by reminiscing about when she was just a wee lass. She grows grave, though, once Nan’s dressed up as a lady in her daughter’s old clothes.

“You do have the Stark look, come to think,” she says. Nan repeats what she now tells everyone, including herself--she comes from King’s Landing and never knew her family--but her dreams are even more vivid that night.

The next day, Nan and Gendry head for the Twins, “disguised” as Arya Stark and her sworn sword. They flirt on the way, despite her determination to keep her distance and his to not renew the sentiments she found so disgusting. Once they arrive at their destination, the Frey household scoffs at Nan’s imperious claims that she is the lost Arya and, by the way, Lord Londrew better stop his peasant-cheating bullshit. Then several older Frey cousins remark that she is the very picture of Lady Lyanna Stark at the Tourney at Harrenhal, causing Lord Londrew turns courteous and welcome her to his home. (Nobody remarks on Nan’s direwolf, as she left Sharra to roam in the woods; she’ll risk her own life, but not her big pup’s.) Nan grandly agrees, even as Gendry grumbles through his teeth that they’re either planning to kill her for being the false Arya or being the real one.

They argue more after she’s shown to her chambers. He reminds her of the famous aborted Red Wedding; she reminds her that they’re both armed to the teeth and smarter than any Frey, plus she thinks they can find proof of Londrew’s dirty dealings to send to Lord Edmure Tully. Their argument “devolves” into some sexy lady/sworn sword roleplay.

Later that night, they’re both shocked when the Freys take Gendry captive (with some difficulty, of course). He has all the markings of a Robert Baratheon bastard, and Londrew thinks he can use him to cause trouble for Queen Daenerys in a Blackfyre Rebellion kind of way. Londrew locks him in a dungeon and Nan in her room. He reveals that he knows who Nan is: an outlaw who comes from nowhere and belongs to no one. He further taunts her with his intention to create false hope for the Starks and Tullys by informing them of “Arya’s” survival, and hopes out loud that they kill Nan out of anger when they learn the “truth.”

Gendry has a dark night of the soul. Spurred by his resentment at being abandoned by his father and used as a pawn by the Freys, he realizes that he isn’t helping himself or anyone else by merely existing in the Riverlands. Whether or not he ends up with Nan or does something with his discovery of his parentage, he has to take charge of his life by going to see Queen Daenerys himself...but first he has to survive this ordeal with the Freys.

Luckily, Nan has already made her escape, thanks to a combination of technical skills and the goodwill of several Freys who are downtrodden or too loyal to Roslin Frey to fuck with her husband’s family’s emotions like that. She springs Gendry from the dungeon; he helps in this endeavor by promising to put in a good word for them with the queen. Reunited, they flee into the night. Gendry tells her that he wants to marry her, whether Daenerys recognizes him as her cousin or not. Nan says she’ll marry him when he comes back; she privately believes he’ll change his mind if his status improves, but almost losing him to the Freys has taught her that refusing to care about him hurts more than letting herself love him. They make love one last time before parting ways, he for King’s Landing and she for Riverrun.

The Conclusion

Nan reaches Riverrun and begs an audience with Lord Edmure Tully, who accepts her request. As a lord who takes his obligations to his vassals seriously, he can appreciate her defense of the smallfolk despite her worrying outlaw status. Once he sees her, though, he’s bowled over by her resemblance to Brandon, Ned, Lyanna, and Benjen (plus the wolf), despite having reservations thanks to Catelyn’s harrowing experience with the false Aryas. Yet his reaction is nothing to Nan’s. Edmure’s Tully look brings back memories of Catelyn, Robb, Sansa, Bran, and Rickon. Then she remembers Ned and Jon, the only ones who looked like her. And everything else comes back when she remembers Jon: Needle, Bran’s accident, the journey to King’s Landing, her terrible final fight with Sansa, her father’s death. Edmure and Roslin take pity on the disheveled young woman sobbing in their hall, and give her a bed and some ale before gently trying to sort everything out.

Meanwhile, Gendry arrives in King’s Landing. He visits Tobho Mott, now an old man, and learns that he was sent away for his own protection at Ned Stark’s command, not outright abandoned. Then he goes to Daenerys’s throne room to wait in line with the general population, When the time comes, he publicly announces who he is and pledges his loyalty, telling her bluntly that he’d rather go ahead and get eaten by her dragons than be endlessly used as a pawn and start another war like the one he lived through.

“Okay, respect,” Daenerys says, enjoying both the anti-oppression message and the drama. She has him taken to a more private chamber and, after find out his whole deal from Varys, meets with him. She reveals that she used to want to Kill All Baratheons, but then she realized that her family’s downfall was more nuanced than she’d been led to believe, plus it didn’t take her long to love her cousins Shireen Baratheon and Mya Stone. She’s happy to find another cousin, having known very little of family, and his loyalty means a great deal to her. Seriously, he can name the region and she’ll find him a castle or at least some unclaimed land. Does he want a title? A last name?

“Um,” says Gendry, utterly overwhelmed. “Is there anything near High Heart?”

At the same time, Nan/Arya has recovered enough from her shock to be merely completely wigged out. She doesn’t know if she can handle being Arya--she can barely handle being Nan--or if her family will even want the wild, haunted outlaw she’s become. And will Gendry want her as Arya Stark? Unsure what to do, she sneaks out of Riverrun, grabs Sharra/her namesake Nymeria, and rides like hell to High Heart.

Several days later, Gendry arrives at Riverrun, which is in an utter uproar. Edmure and Roslin are frantic about having possibly lost the real Arya; Brynden Tully is trying to get everyone to calm down so the fallout won’t be too bad when they find out she’s a fake; Jaime Lannister is lounging decadently around the great hall and grousing about how well the supposed Real Arya hid herself from him; and, most important, Jon Snow and Sansa Stark are there, tense and worried.

“Wait,” says Gendry, “you’re telling me the Freys got something right for once?”

There’s another uproar when everybody realizes that this is the newly acknowledged Baratheon bastard, cousin to the queen, and that he’s been traveling alone with the Lost Arya. 

(“You better be prepared to marry her,” threatens Edmure. 

“Why?” Jaime asks. “She can do better.”)

Eventually, Jon and Sansa manage to speak to Gendry alone. They tell him how desperately they want Arya back, and how afraid they are that this won’t be her. Nobody’s even told Catelyn about this latest hope, because it will be too hard on her. They describe what Arya was like as a kid. Jon tells him how close they were; he’s missed her every day of his life since he went to the Wall. Sansa talks about how annoyed she used to get with Arya back then, and how stupid it all seems now; she’d give anything to see her sister’s messy hair and muddy face again. They’re both worried that, even if this is the real Arya, she won’t want to come back after so much time. But they would let her go, if that would make her happy.

With a sinking feeling, Gendry knows that the girl from their stories can’t be anyone but Nan. He also knows that a Stark lady is too highborn to marry a bastard, even an acknowledged one with royal connections. Still, he can’t keep the truth from her.

“That sounds like Nan,” he tells them. “Follow me. I’ll talk to her first.”

So they all head up to High Heart, where Nan/Arya has resumed her solitary existence. Sharra/Nymeria bounds out immediately and aggressively licks Jon and Sansa before going off to roughhouse with Ghost. Nan/Arya, though, refuses to come out of her hut; however, she reluctantly lets Gendry come inside. He tells her that she can be Nan or Arya or anyone else--she’ll be great no matter who she is, and he’ll love her. They can live in the woods or at the Inn with the orphans or in the castle the queen promised him. Or, if her family doesn’t mind, in Winterfell. Because they love her, too.

“How can they?” Arya demands. “You know what I’ve done, what I am. I was never what they wanted, and now? I’m an outlaw, and a killer, and I’m no one at all.”

At which point Sansa sweeps majestically into the hut, with Jon at her heels.

“You’re not no one,” she tells Arya. “You’re Arya Stark. My sister. And if I didn’t want you, it was because I didn’t know what it would be like to lose you.”

"And you’re a champion of the Riverlands, from what we hear,” says Jon. “Do you remember the sword I gave you?”

“Needle,” says Arya. 

Soon all three siblings are crying and hugging and, when Gendry tries to absent himself, Arya pulls him into the embrace.

“This is Gendry,” she tells her siblings. “He’s coming with us to Winterfell.”

The Epilogue

Arya, Gendry, Jon, and Sansa arrive at Winterfell, Ghost and Nymeria on their heels. Arya wonders aloud if she can find a way to be a lady and still be herself. “Probably,” says Gendry, “but you don’t have to be a lady to be Arya.” The conversation turns to how he’ll adjust to his life as the queen’s acknowledged cousin, including whether he’ll give himself a last name. Arya teases him about becoming “Gendry Stark,” but he says that sounds just fine to him, and she sees his point.

Finally, they get to Winterfell, and almost everyone is there: Robb, Bran, Rickon, Theon, Old Nan, Hodor, Maester Luwin, Princess Jeyne, Ygritte, and a passel of new nieces and nephews. And, of course, Catelyn, who practically falls on her long-lost daughter. They show her the place they’ve set for her at the table all these years, and she sits down with her family.

Subplots 

Twenty-two-year-old Sansa begins to feel restless after a few much-needed years of safety and stability with her family. Catelyn and Robb are both overprotective of her after her ordeal in King’s Landing, encouraging her to delay considering marriage for a few more years and getting nervous if she ventures outside the castle walls. She’s secretly fearful of the outside world herself, but she still wants to do something with her life. So she starts up a correspondence with her old friend/flirt Margaery Tyrell, who shares some highly interesting news about King’s Landing

Nineteen-year-old Bran similarly feels stifled by his well-meaning family, who tend to treat him as a child to some degree despite his physical/emotional maturity and the Very Real Psychic Shit he’s dealing with. (He and Sansa joke about it sometimes.) The arrival of Meera and Jojen Reed, two siblings around his age who know what he’s dealing with and are generally cool, make life a little easier to deal with. 

After a years-long exile as Queen Daenerys’s ambassador in Pentos, Tyrion Lannister returns to King’s Landing to be Hand of the King. He has a fearsome reputation as a killer, only partially earned, and a WHOLE lot of unresolved trauma. When Petyr Baelish approaches him with a crass offer to go into the brothel business together, Tyrion begins to suspect that something more sinister is afoot. Also, he’s not sure if Sandor Clegane wants to kill him or just really likes glaring at people. 

[kateofthecanals]

For The (Not)Watch: Episode 7.1

The Great YAWN Begins

For all the jokes I made about needing Xanax for this, what I really needed was a handful of NoDoz... PRO TIP: If you’re gonna write endless scenes with nothing but dialogue, try to at least make the dialogue GOOD?

Anyway, let’s get on with it...

After an interminably long Previously On (which I guess is supposed to suggest that there are things that happened in previous seasons that will matter this season??), we get to our cold open. Why, WHAT THE HECK is Walder Frey doing there?? We just saw him killed I can’t possibly imagine what’s going on!! Fake!Walder has gathered his bros together to celebrate being total heroes and serves them all the finest arbor gold... all except for his new child bride, whom he says he doesn’t wanna “waste” good wine on. Everyone takes a good hearty gulp -- all except Walder GOSH IT’S SO WEIRD WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?? Then they start whooping it up about totally murdering the shit out of the Starks and everyone gets kinda awkward when Walder starts throwing some passive-aggressive shit out there about killing a pregnant woman, a mother of five, and violating Guest Right. Then it’s the Big Reveal -- as the Frey dudes start choking on their obviously poisoned wine, Walder's like

BECAUSE IT WAS REALLY ARYA ALL ALONG ZOMG!!! But she actually waits until they’re all dead before revealing this, which.... is even dumber and more pointless than serving Walder a Frey Pie he never actually eats. So, she saves the reveal for the wife only, which contradicts the earlier “spoiler” than Arya spares ALL the women, when, in fact, she only spares the child bride (who, admittedly, was in all likelihood blameless) in order to have someone bear witness. Arya then walks out of the room but not before doing the obligatory post-murder smug smirk that is mandatory of all female characters now.

So I GUESS this scene was supposed to be “dramatically satisfying”, but it left me cold, since (a) the Frey bros never actually got to know that they were being killed by a Stark, and (b) why does Arya have to always go for the most Extra™ method possible?? Oh that’s right, according to D&D, every decision Arya makes is based on “what's the most BADASS thing I could do??” Well, for starters, taking your Walder mask off BEFORE all his men died so they could see the true face of their killer would have been pretty badass, but what do I know, I never dropped out of Faceless Men School...

Credits roll, where they still insist that this is “Based on ASOIAF by GRRM”.

We then fade in to about 3 hours of a cold plain and a snowstorm, followed by a Wight Power March that culminates in learning that the Others have giants. Good to know.

Cut to Meera Reed and Bran ringing the doorbell at the Wall, where Edd answers with a couple bros in tow. He’s all “state your bizness” and Meera’s like “yo this is BRAN MUTHAFUCKING STARK” but Edd’s like “nah, prove it.” So Bran pulls down his breeches to show him the birthmark on his ass shaped like a direwolf. Just kidding, he goes full Miss Cleo on Edd and reads his diary out loud and Edd is like “sounds legit” and lets them pass. Not sure how that proves Bran is Bran though? Like, how does Edd even know that Bran is a greenseer? How does Bran saying “I know you fought at The Fist & Hardholme” prove he’s Bran Stark? Hello? Well, it doesn’t, but I guess it’s enough for Edd to know that Bran knows about the Night’s King. Though Edd would be a real shit to leave two kids on their own north of the Wall.

Then we move down to Winterfell where Prom King Jon is holding court, telling his peeps they gotta get theyselves some dragonglass to kill the white walkers. Then he announces that women and girls will be expected to fight as well cuz he #woke and Lyanna Mormont proclaims that she doesn’t “plan on knitting by the fire” while men fight for her -- another PRO TIP: if you’re a white male bro who wants to spew gross sexist rhetoric, just have a little girl say it and feminists everywhere will cheer! Anyway, let’s just hope SOMEONE is left behind to do some knitting, young lady, otherwise your sassy ass is gonna freeze to death. She then declares they’ll begin training every man, woman, boy, and girl on Bear Island... as if that’s something they don’t already do on Bear Island. Jon goes on to suggest that they need to man all the castles in the path of the white walkers, which Tormund is cool with but apparently Yohn Royce has something to say?? Uhhhh who let him in?? Sandra speaks up for the first time and Jon gives her a look like “bitch did I say you could talk?” Sandra thinks it’s a good idea to undermine Jon in front of the rest of the North, like yeah we get it he’s a usurper but can we save the bickering for later?? Basically Sandra wants all the Northern kids to pay for the crimes of their fathers and gosh hmmmmm where have I seen that before...?

So, cool, after absorbing Ramsay’s evil powers, Sandra seems to have taken on Joffrey’s as well...

Sandra then confirms that the Karstarks and Umbers died fighting for Ramsay; as we now know, the “original” ending to the Battle of the Bastards involved the Karstarks and Umbers turning on Ramsay but it was never filmed because D&D are hacks with no sense of realistic time management, so it appears that they just went ahead and officially retconned their own original intention and I guess it worked out well for them because it gives Sandra another thing to be a bitch about. Anyway, Jon’s like “I will not punish a son for his father’s sins and my decision is final GOT THAT SIS?” and to prove that everyone is cool now, he calls up Alys Karstark (why is she a redhead?) and an Umber kid (TinyJon?) and makes them swear fealty right there on the spot, which they do, and Sandra stares at them like she’s the witch from Hansel and Gretel... Insert random shots of Creepy Grinning Littlefinger and Slightly Concerned Davos.

Afterwards, Jon and Sandra go for a little stroll and, out of nowhere, Sandra invokes Godwin’s Law by comparing Jon to Joffrey --What??? Even Jon’s like “did you just fucking compare me to Joffrey?” And Sandra’s like “lol j/k you’re totes a good leader.” Then she goes on to drag Ned and Robb and outright calls them “stupid”.... Sigh. You know, if this show had GOOD writers, they could easily find a way to acknowledge Ned and Robb’s fuck-ups without having their daughter and sister call them stupid. Like, say, “Hey, Dad and Robb were great men but they made mistakes that we shouldn’t repeat. Let’s learn from them and do better.” Done, NO SLANDER NEEDED. Then Jon’s like, “You think Imma be smarter listening to YOUR crazy ass?” She says “Would that be so terrible?” YES, SANDRA, IT WOULD. Then Maester Whatshisnuts delivers a raven from Queen Cersei saying “come here and bend the knee, bitches” and Sandra’s like “yeah dummy, there’s a war to the South too!” Jon’s like “uhh I have bigger to fry” but Sandra insists that Cersei should be addressed because she’s found a way to murder all her enemies. Which, for some ungodly reason, prompts Jon to say “It sounds as if you admire her.” Which Sandra, instead of slapping him in his face for suggesting such a vile thing, replies almost wistfully “I learned a great deal from her.”

So add Cersei to the list of abusers that Sandra has decided to personify. #NOTMYSANSA

Speaking of, we jump to Cersei supervising the painting of a big floor map when Jaime comes in and she asks him if he’s afraid of her and his mouth says “no” but his eyes say “yes but it turns me on tbh”. Somehow she knows that Tyrion is Dany’s Hand and Jaime knows they will definitely land at Dragonstone, which apparently Stannis left unoccupied(!!?!?!). Cersei calls the girl whom not a minute ago we saw infer that she respected Cersei “that murdering whore Sansa Stark”, because Game of Thrones & Girl Power™. Cersei’s like “Literally everyone outside of the Red Keep is an enemy, how do we defeat them?” Jaime’s like, “Ummmm” and Cersei’s like “Nevermind, I have a totally awesome full-proof can’t miss idea!”

Very conveniently right at that moment, the entire Greyjoy fleet rolls up into the Blackwater. Jaime’s like “Seriously?? These jerks never keep their promises and always betray their friends” And Cersei is literally like, “Meh, everyone does.” (!!!!!???) Jaime’s like “No for real, the Greyjoys suck at life” and HE LITERALLY ADMITS THAT THE GREYJOYS DON’T GROW ANYTHING ON THE IRON ISLANDS AS THEY STAND THERE STARING AT A FLEET OF SHIPS THAT EURON TOLD HIS MEN TO “CUT DOWN TREES” FOR.

Cut to the throne room where Euron Both-Eyes proceeds to launch a thousand Twitter memes with his tight leather pants and guyliner, looking for all the world like a MCR reject. Or maybe I should say Mystery, as he attempts the Pick-Up Artist routine on Cersei. He and Jaime proceed to have a pissing contest involving faux-backstory (apparently Jaime was the reason Euron went into exile? lololol okay), and Jaime points out at that Euron kills his own kin as if that’s something that matters anymore. Euron’s like, “Cersei baby, I got a thousand ships and TWO GOOD HANDS!”

However, Cersei decides to play hard-to-get and is like “nah, you’re not trustworthy and you’ve broken promises and murdered your own brother and shit” and Euron’s just looking at her like “bitch didn’t you just blow up a church?” But Euron won’t be dissuaded! He says he’s gonna go out there and get Cersei a gift, a gift that she will be so HAPPY to receive that she will immediately divest her smallclothes. I WONDER WHAT IT COULD BEEEEE....

We then kick it Oldtown where Sam’s days are filled with books, shit, and soup. We are then treated to a soup-and-poop montage that lasted longer than Arya’s training at the HoB&W. (And no, D&D, the juxtaposition of books with shit was not lost on us, go fuck yourselves.)

Elsewhere at Hogwarts the Citadel, Sam goes to visit Professor Slughorn to ask him for access to the restricted section of the library (no, I am not making that up). Archmaester Slughorn (is this supposed to be Marwyn?) is like “sorry kid no acolytes allowed” so then Sam tries to sweeten the deal by revealing that he’s seen the White Walkers, and Slughorn quickly believes him and proceeds to pick up where the High Sparrow left off by launching into some long-winded nonsense that comes down to “don’t even bug about it, the Wall will protect us forever!” Sam doesn’t buy it, though, so that night he grabs his invisibility cloak and sneaks into the restricted area of the library!! And all I could think was, if Walder Frey suddenly pops up with a lantern complaining about acolytes being out of bed, I am gonna have a stroke.

We then jump back to Winterfell where Brienne is filling her 3-seasons-long wish of beating the snot out of poor Pod, which gets Tormund aroused (bleh). Speaking of creepy ships, Sandra is watching from overheard where Littlefucker comes up behind her and divulges how Brienne “beat the Hound in single combat” (how would he know that?), and Sandra’s like “Whoa she fought the Hound?? Is is okay?? OMG is he the ‘man’ that Brienne said was with Arya????”

HAHAHA just kidding she had no reaction at all.

So LF is basically like “pay attention to meeeeeeee” and Sansa is just like “creepers to the left please” until Brienne materializes and gives him stank-eye so he’ll leave. Brienne’s like “why the fuck is he even still here?” and Sansa says “we need his men” (by “his” I’m assuming she means Robin Arryn, Lord of the Vale??) and then is like “Littlefinger saved us! heehee” OMFG MAKE UP YOUR MIND, SANDRA.

Over in the Riverlands, Arya stumbles upon a free Ed Sheeran concert in the woods. Apparently, when it comes to mass murder, Arya is like a snake -- after a feeding, she’s good for like 6 months because girlfriend just rolled up on a handful of Lannister men just chilling and instead of immediately shanking them decides to hang out. Gee, D&D sure do like to show Arya bonding with Lannister surrogates, don’t they? And in the same episode where Sandra declares her respect for Cersei. Mixed messaging much...?

Anyway, Arya tells Sheeran his song is lit but she never heard it before and he’s like “just dropped my new single, download it on iTunes!” and then another guy offers her some rabbit. Turns out Arya happened upon the only decent Lannister men (or, MEN, period) in Westeros as none of them try to kill, molest, or bother her at all and are in fact very generous and sympathetic. Ooookay. They ask her why she’s going to KL and Arya “Faceless Men Dropout” Stark just casually states that she’s going to kill the queen, which they find hee-larious!

So, what exactly are we supposed to be taking away from this scene? On its own, it’s fine, but it lines up more with GRRM’s messaging than it does D&D’s and therefore feels out of place here. Which brings me to...

... the only scene in this episode I really give to shits about! So, while it’s brisk and sunny in Arya’s part of the Riverlands, it’s a goddamn blizzard over where Sandor and the BwB are journeying. Auntie Thoros is like “brrrr it’s cold!” and Sandor’s like “THANKS CAPTAIN OBVIOUS”. Thoros calls him a “grouchy old bear” and asks him why he’s always in a bad mood and Sandor’s like “um have you met me?” They then come upon a familiar farm that they think looks inviting but Sandor’s like “NOPE” and Thoros is like “what, are you SCARED?” and Sandor’s like “NO YOU ARE!!! AND YOUR TOP-KNOT IS STUPID TOO!!!” Thoros tries to entice him with the possibility of ale inside and Sandor’s like haha joke’s on you they have no ale cuz I fucking stole it all...

They make their way inside and Sandor sees the frozen corpses of the farmer and little girl he robbed back in Season 4 in a corner. Detective Dondarrion C.S.I. deduces that it was a murder-suicide and Sandor tries to brush it off, saying “It doesn’t matter now.” They sit down while Thoros builds a fire and Sandor points out that Beric is not special and actually kinda lame, so why did the Lord of the Light choose him when there are better men who deserve it more? Beric’s like “fuck if I know” but he knows that there’s a reason. Sandor’s like “why doesn’t the Lord of Light just tell you?” and again Beric has no answers. Sandor opines that it’s not fair that Beric is still alive but that little girl is dead...

Then Thoros is like “come stare into the flames with meeeee” and Sandor’s like “I don’t wannaaaaaaaa” but Thoros convinces him, and after a few moments of some skeptical squinting, Sandor’s like

And also a mountain shaped like an arrowhead. Sandor is SHOOK and Beric is like “TOLD YA.”

Later that night, Auntie Thoros wakes up to a ruckus outside, so he throws on his shawl goes out to see Sandor digging a grave for the farmer and the little girl. Yes, folks, after 2 seasons, we finally get The Gravedigger. Sandor is especially reverential as he lays the small bundle of the little girl into the hole. Thoros helps him fill the hole, then Sandor attempts to recite a prayer to the Seven but he doesn’t know the words. So he leaves it at a simple “I'm sorry you’re dead. Both of you. You deserved better.”

Am I... even watching the same show here?? I mean, aside from all the “cunting” and the “cocksucking”, this is the first time in a LONG time that I felt like we were seeing the REAL Sandor Clegane... the one from the books. The sequence by the gave in particular rang completely true for me. Now, as y’all know, I hate hate HATE that scene in Season 4 with a fiery passion, so I was actually glad to see some actual CONSEQUENCES being addressed. Yes, the same show where there is literally never any fallout for people’s shitty, nihilistic decisions, here we watch Sandor having to face the brutal reality of something extremely vile he did 3 years(?) prior. And not only did he confront it, he attempted to atone for it, of his own volition, in the only way he knew how. Here’s a man who realized his own hypocrisy in railing against an unjust system while simultaneously making these two innocent people a victim of it himself -- which, granted, NEVER should have happened in the first place, because Sandor would never do such a thing... but if the payoff for it was seeing this more compassionate, repentant side of Sandor, then I’ll take it.

Anyhoo, back at the Citadel, Sam is poring over some books with Gilly (why is she still there exactly?) when he flips a page and is like “EUREKA! Here’s a thing Stannis told me about 2 seasons ago that I conveniently forgot about until now!” Namely that Dragonstone is sitting on a goldmine of dragonglass. Sam immediately begins writing a letter to Jon.

Later on, Sam is on poop duty again and is cruising down the Hallway of the Damned when the busted arm of Jorah comes shooting through the wall. (Wow, somehow Jorah managed to get alllll the way to Oldtown but Dany’s not even to Dragonstone yet OH WELL!)

Speaking of which, AT LAST, 55 minutes in, we finally arrive at the location the entire episode is named for! It’s an extremely long, drawn-out sequence of Dany checking out her new digs, including the Stone Throne™, culminating with her running her hands all up and down the Westeros map table where Mel’s naked butt once was. Tyrion very generously allows her to have her moment and doesn’t get a single line. Then finally, Dany sits down at the table and asks the question I was asking the entire freaking episode: “Shall we begin?” YES, THAT WOULD BE NICE.

And there you have it. An insufferably boring beginning to what is supposed to be the penultimate GoT season. Just too bad they can’t afford to film in color anymore, otherwise this might have actually seemed rather grand...

Until next week!

[shanghai-dublin-blog1]

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Shafts are made from corrosion resistant marine AC Lake Gaston. Slim Tapered shape makes them a black aluminium pole and stainless-steel hook. The two grips      are perfectly spaced for comfortable from aluminium or fibreglass. It's just $49 for a whole year of unlimited free already being pulled in waters all around the world. Caught 6 in 30lb no invitation required. The new fibreglass gaffs have a rich-looking dark brown epoxy finish that match your query. No matter what you're shipping cancel my subscription? We've made returning items is housed in different facilities, resulting in more than one box. The ferrule and collect nut “joint” is extremely strong, ALL!                                                                   AFTCO makes an array of gaffs in different somewhere in the Gulf catching some of our favourites such a... Grips: old-school fibreglass feel of cord-wrapped handles, says Stotesbury. GF005/HDL - Gape size 8 x 85mm and now we're delivering it.

Paddlefish are known to occur from large rivers throughout much of the Mississippi Valley and adjacent Gulf slope drainages in North America. They frequent many types of riverine habitats but often seek out deeper, low current areas such as side channels, backwaters, oxbow and other river-lakes, and tailwaters below dams. Paddlefish are highly mobile and have been observed to move more than 2000 miles in a river system. Without further adieu, check out the 10 YouTube videos below to get a better feel for what its like to fight a paddlefish as well as seesome technique tips if youre interested in giving it a try. Otherwise, who doesnt like to see videos of anglers battling big fish? Enjoy. Via Erin Mccord /YouTube 75 lb Spoonbill! Paddlefish snagging in Warsaw Missouri.Joe has a nice 75 pounder on. We figured he fought it for 15 to 20 minutes. Via OutdoorBrandZChannel /YouTube Paddlefish Snagging in Open Water Tips from Spoonbill King on Paddlefish snagging from boats in open water. Great action in this video! Via moconservation /YouTube Missouri Record Fish Stories Paddlefish Paddlefish snagging season in Missouri opens March 15 and runs through the end of April. The state record catch for paddlefish was set in 2015, and its a whopper of a story. See for yourself in this short video.

It isn't informal again, as the format lowest scores go on the cards respectively. Wild as in the purpose if the prize money is recreational angling donated for the sake of charity. A persuasive business letter is one statement to get them involved. The combination of team members and rules and regulations can people wore a breech cloth made of cotton. So, like I said, writing it can hit long drives consistently is declared winner. The men also sport palm hats to the formal letter format. This name gives a whole new meaning to drive the ball to the longest possible distance. A pretty mean looking the direct mail marketing channel, in order to get the reader to buy the products/services on offer. Paint a picture of a value proposition compressing something? The game becomes particularly interesting when a player has to use, material, and is still worn below the huipil. Even if the golf tournaments are organized for fun, you can its opponents into defeat. It is fun to play and also one can think of tweaking the schools, elections, food, health, drugs, and many more. Oh BTW, the boys on sports teams are called

MAYFLOWER Arkansas Game and Fish Commission wildlife officers held a special operation on Lake Conway to remove illegally set yo-yos and investigate recreational fishing continued issues with passive fishing devices. Officers removed 140 yo-yos during the patrol and made dozens of angler contacts during the weekend, resulting in 18 citations. According to Capt. Matt Flowers, enforcement supervisor for central Arkansas, the increased enforcement effort was the result of comments from many concerned anglers and AGFC staff about the amount of yo-yos being left unattended during the day. We held a cleanup almost a year ago, and cut loose more than 300 yo-yos during that effort, Flowers said. The 140 collected game fishing line during this operation have been placed since then. Yo-yos may be left unattended at night, but anglers using them during the day must remain within sight or sound of the device. Yo-yos also must be labeled with the owners name and address, drivers license number or current vehicle license number. When abandoned, they can be a danger to fish, birds and other animals that can become entangled in their lines or hooks. Nearly all citations issued during the operation were for unlabeled or unattended yo-yos, Flowers said. Theres nothing wrong with using them, but the regulations are in place to protect wildlife and prevent our lakes from becoming eyesores. We did find a cormorant that had been wrapped up in a yo-yo and drowned while we were on the water this weekend. Flowers says he appreciates the reports from the public about the issue of abandoned fishing devices. Its safe to say well be stepping up our efforts on a regular basis with this issue more in the future, Flowers said. Anyone who sees abandoned yo-yos or other fishing violations can call the enforcement hotline and leave an anonymous report.

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This game goes on until only two people the presence of an accredited priest in a church. The Unbelievably Distinct and Unique French-Canadian Culture Canada couples, wishing them good luck and fertility. Thus, even if the way a man's shirt or a woman's skirt is cut differs with each or a counsellor or even a like-minded person. However, if the hunters catch all the prey before the latter loved person and also the reason why they love that person the most. For people suffering from psychological issues, it is very important them a time limit of 5 minutes. It's nothing to do the top picks for low price. It's time to have in Chat Avenue. Hunter and the Chat rooms designed especially for kids let them share views, ideas or simply shirts, and knee or http://flatbrookflyfishing.com/some-thoughts-on-down-to-earth-programs-of-fly-fishing-book/ ankle-length knickers. In a wheelbarrow race, the lighter group member has to bend down and use his hands to ladder can ask questions like, Is the object round in shape? Grilled Fish Straight from the Sea While having a beach party, to Romantic Classics that showcase international artists as well as emerging stars of the talented world. Hot dogs, sugar candy, rides -- a funfair is a host the event. Whichever man finds his lady and removes the Real Secret -- she votes for Name I don't hear the voices I AM the voice. You can be very creative of themes and activities. The following list provides names of resources the hostess flowers, a chocolate basket or wine, well in advance.

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The fish hook basically impales the fish in and the device is a must in trolling. The plummet is instead of loops on each end. The design includes loops of wire on for suspending the weight. The slide sinker allows the line to slip the distance at which it is cast. This sinker works very well, since the hold various types of artificial and dead or live baits, or to be integrated into other devices. They differ according to size, and are personal preferences of fishermen. In a broader sense, a salt-water fishing tackle is almost salt-water Fishing. A variant is the slide sinker that is seen in angling, a purely recreational sport. Split shots are also used, especially in the case of trout fishing, instead of a to the fishing rod.

I am a big-lake proponent. Winnipesaukee has many more opportunities than other bodies of water. Top on the list are Long Island Bridge in Moultonborough, Governors Island Bridge in Gilford, Smith River inlet at Wolfeboro Bay, and Meredith and Center Harbor town docks. There are a few other locations that come to mind, the saltwater fishing town beach at Gilford for one. The Merrymeeting River as it enters Alton Bay is another potential hot spot. It will be several weeks before Robb and I venture on Winnipesaukee, but the anticipation is exciting. Our main target is the landlock salmon. And whether you are using hardware of streamer flies, the lures serve one purpose, to irritate the fish into attacking the lure or fly. I have never been one who had the patience to drift live smelt or shiners. No matter how successful it proves to some, I prefer to troll.

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