#salvery is bad

[bethanydelleman]

Two extra points:

People often erroneously assume that all/most of the Bertram's income comes from Antigua. This is most likely untrue. Sir Thomas was in financial trouble because Antigua was giving poor returns AND Tom ran up some massive debts. He probably could have dealt with one or the other, not both. Plantations in England are mentioned and a five mile park around the manor house, so it's likely they have a good income in England which Antigua supplements.

Secondly, the novel never reveals what exactly Sir Thomas had or fixed in Antigua and he is presented as a moral character throughout. His redemption at the end is about mercenary ambitions in England and in regards to his children. Whatever point Jane Austen was trying to make about slavery, I never trust anyone who says they know exactly what it was. It might be more about Fanny Price/the position of women in British society (a point explicitly made in Emma*) which is not super palatable today. It may be about how the entire gentry's wealth is founded in suffering. I don't know. But I find people who dismiss the entire book because Sir Thomas is (possibly) a slave owner really annoying. Just because we are explicitly told Sir Thomas has interest in Antigua doesn't mean any of the other extremely wealthy men are innocent. What kind of trade made those Bingleys so wealthy?

*“Excuse me, ma’am, but this is by no means my intention; I make no inquiry myself, and should be sorry to have any made by my friends. When I am quite determined as to the time, I am not at all afraid of being long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry would soon produce something—Offices for the sale—not quite of human flesh—but of human intellect.”

“Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at the slave-trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to the abolition.” “I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade,” replied Jane; “governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies. But I only mean to say that there are advertising offices, and that by applying to them I should have no doubt of very soon meeting with something that would do.”

Emma, V 2, Ch XVII

Don’t Write Off Sir Thomas

Sir Thomas is a very complex character and it’s important to understand him. He is both a deeply moral person and involved in slavery and that makes him human.

Yes, Sir Thomas is probably a slave owner, or a person who invests in sugar plantations that use slavery. But that is not how he sees himself. He probably doesn’t even think about it much, he sees himself as a moral father, a good member of parliament, and a good husband. And the tricky part is that he can reasonably be both.

Slavery is bad (obviously), but we are also on a very precarious high horse when we judge Sir Thomas and the rest of Regency England. Most people then probably didn’t think about the origin of their sugar, just like we today don’t. Most people probably thought slavery was unfortunate, but how else do they get cotton or tea? It’s just how the economy works! It wasn’t in front of them, they had their own problems, they forgot, or they reasoned, or they justified.

Many many product TODAY (like chocolate and tea) are produced by slaves or in very slave-like conditions, some things in the very same countries. We know, or should know, that companies use child labour and that offshore factories in so many countries are terrible and inhumane. We should know that the cheap products we buy are made by people living in near slavery. It’s just how the economy works! It isn’t in front of us; we forget, we reason, and we justify.

Sir Thomas is not any better or worse than us. He does what many people do, he compartmentalizes. He does something totally immoral during the day and then comes home and believes he’s a moral person. That’s just his job (or investment), it’s not him. He goes to church, he supports the poor around Mansfield, and tries to raise his children with principles. Just because he’s much closer and much more involved in the evil doesn’t acquit anyone else. And just because slavery was clearly wrong, doesn’t mean that any of us are right.

So instead of just writing off Sir Thomas as evil because he’s involved in slavery, we should take a moment to wonder what someone in 200 years will think of us, and our economy, and our rationalizations of evil.

(This is why the 1999 adaption, which made him into a flatly evil character, did not do anything to forward our understanding of slavery. A nuanced discussion of how a person can both see themselves as moral and be involved in such a distasteful activity is the message we actually need to hear)

[avo-kat]

antivegan: veganism bad child salvery quinoa

me: um, actually, ur wrong?

antivegan: wow why are you coming AT ME! i only eat meat three times as week! go and complain to companies and CAPITALISM you are barking at the WRONG TREE

alright then

[lady-literature]

Accidental Crime Boss Marinette

Okay so,, I have this AU in my head, right? (not surprised) and I’m lacking any real direction for it (still not surprised) but it basically goes like this:

Marinette moves to Gotham.

She’s drawn there for whatever reason and the kwami are saying something about balance and being a Guardian and her sacred duty and something but Marinette isn’t really listening. She’s too busy trying to find a shop front where she can open a bakery without having to worry about getting mugged every time she steps outside.

Chloé comes with her, obviously, because they’re friends and Chloé has a business degree she puts to good use actually running Mari’s bakery and online boutique while Mari gets to bake and fuck around basically. Adrien, Luka and Kagami are not there, but that’s mostly because they travel too much to settle down and keeping an empty apartment in Gotham is just asking for trouble.

Kagami is a world-renowned fencer and Luka travels the world for his music company. Not touring, but soaking up cultures and ways of life so he can make soundtracks to movies and tv shows. Providing the background and life to a film is more his style than touring the world ala his father, Jagged Stone.

Adrien is having the time of his life being Kagami’s trophy husband. He has no pressing responsibilities he doesn’t take on for himself and he gets to fuck with the world’s elite with little to no consequences. He spends most of his days donating far too much money to charities and orphanages and then causing minor scandals that land him on the cover of magazines.

He has much the same kind of ‘dumbass with a heart of gold’ persona to the media as Bruce Wayne does, only without the playboy bits.

(There is a wall in the back of the bakery, where Chloé and Mari carefully cut out and frame every headline and ridiculous picture Adrien has. He is very much delighted when he learns about his ‘wall of fame’.)

Anyway, Marinette finds herself with a bakery not overly far from crime alley, much to Chloé’s chagrin.

(“What do you mean it ‘just felt right’?! I swear to kwami, DC, you’re going to get us robbed and sold into slavery.”)

They do not get sold into salvery.

In fact, despite their less than stellar choice of locale, they do pretty well for themselves. The only problems they have (according to Chloé) is the army of children Marinette accidentally attracted.

When asked, Marinette tells everyone that it was an accident. Meanwhile, Chloé, standing behind her, will shake her head and insist there was literally never any other option for them the moment that first kid came in looking to nab some cash and a few pastries.

Mari lives by the phrases, ‘kindness breeds more kindness’ and ‘do unto others’ and all that other nice person shit. Chloé just lets Mari pseudo-adopt her strays and makes sure that they don’t steal anything too important in the time it takes her to gain their loyalty.

The kwami stay staunchly out of any arguments involving the kids (and eventually the homeless all along their street and every working girl in a five-block radius). They do so with a special brand of amusement that never means good things for either of them. (After all, the last time the kwami looked that amused, they moved to Gotham.)

The first kid is named Serrure, as Marinette comes to learn over the next month after he returns again and again, getting closer and closer like a feral cat. Other kids come during that time, all of them too small and too thin and too guarded for Mari's tastes. She wants to wrap them all up and tuck them into bed but she can’t. She has to be patient, has to be gentle. These kids are just as likely to bite her hand as they are to accept help.

Serrure becomes an almost permanent fixture at the bakery after that first month. Mari’s not quite sure what she did to get through to him, but she did, she supposes. He can’t be much older than eleven and looks nine, but after getting settled, she and Chloé discover this little slip of a boy is just as mischievous as Trixx and has all the dramatics of their favorite black cat.

The kwami, when talking about him, only refer to Serrure as Loki, even after Marinette scolds them for it. She eventually gives up trying to correct them, it’s not like Serrure talks to them anyway(yet)((that she knows of)).

There’s an apartment above the bakery, which is where Chloé and Mari and all her strays that grow to trust her enough live. It’s three bedrooms, and at first, Mari just buys as many bunk beds as she can fit into the spare room and calls it a day. The kids feel safe in her home, which isn’t too surprising. Everyone thinks the bakery feels safe, feels like home or comfort or whatever else eases their minds.

And Marinette should hopes so. She certainly put enough time and effort and magic and energy into the wards around this place for that to happen. To protect her and the children and all her strays that no one else will help.

But, she eventually amasses too many kids to fit into the one room. Chloé throws a fit about having to share with Mari again—“I had enough of that in university thank you very much”—but she relinquishes easily enough.

Mari buys more bunk beds, and Serrure has taken to sneaking into her room to curl up in her bed anyway, and sometimes the smaller kids who have nightmares will come in and pile on as well.

(There are only a few that Chloé will allow to do the same with her. It is considered a high honor and breeds a playful kind of jealousy that Chloé finds amusing. Mari scolds her for pitting the kids against each other.)

That only lasts them another two months.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Chloé tells her one day before the kids wake up. Mari is at the stove, cooking and baking for a small army while Chloé balances the books. “There’s not enough room for us all, DC, and the only reason someone hasn’t come barrelling down on us about the abundance of children is by the grace of your absurd amount of luck.”

“Well I can’t just kick them out, Queenie! What do you want from me?”

“Either we need to buy more real estate in this city—which I’d rather not do—or you open up the grimoire and start building pocket dimensions. I know you can. I’ve read the chapter.”

Marinette looks at her. “That is such a bad idea.”

They do the idea.

And then Mari adds about a thousand more wards to the bakery, carved into the wood and counter and anything that’s a permanent fixture. Doorways become particularly ward heavy, what with them being the entrances and exits to the hidden realms and children’s’ rooms.

The apartment above the bakery isn’t quite infinite but it gets pretty damn close some days.

This also means, of course, that all the kids definitely know about magic now. Some of them—Serrure—have known about it for a while she knows, but it’s different now. The kwami followed her around most of the time and she doesn’t keep them trapped in the Miracle Box like Fu did, but now that the kids know, they don’t bother staying hidden.

The children, at least, love them and the kwami adore them with all the ferocity a god can give. After Chloé gets over her ‘ew children’ phase, she throws herself into their education (on top of actually running the businesses Mari keeps, mind you). She has the help of the kwami, who act as personal tutors to the children, and it’s not long before the kids start to joke about her being the Principal.

(Some tried to call her Warden, but that joke didn’t last long.)

Marinette has also been telling the kids bedtime stories ever since this started. Old stories of the Guardian and Chosens who fought back the darkness, she shares all she knows of the Orders history with these kids and it’s not until Wayzz points it out to her does she realize what she’s doing.

“Ladybugs are known for renewal. It is no surprise that you are rebuilding what was lost.”

Rebuilding the Order using children was certainly not her intention but, well. She supposes there’s no place safer for her kids than what is shaping up to be the new Miracle Temple. It’s the only haven where they can learn to harness their Gifts and powers, it’s the only place where they can be surrounded by others like them without being thrust into superhero-dom.

Context: about a month into this whole circus, Marinette had realized there was a significant—almost all of them really—amount of metas and Gifted in her little hoard of strays. Which is… odd. Especially with how few metas there are in Gotham.

She had asked the kwami about it, and they have that amused look again. “You are their guardian.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re their guardian. True, you are the Guardian of us, of the ancient ways, but you are a guardian at your soul too. You protect what is yours, and they are yours whether you realise it or not. The children can sense that, so they flock to you.”

And, huh. She supposes that makes sense but that’s also really kind of strange and weird and she doesn't want to think about that anymore actually.

So things are… fine, Marinette supposes. The bakery is doing well, and she has about two dozen-plus helpers running around underfoot to help tend to the customers or run to the store or help in the back with the baking. And every kid of hers has new clothes, their street things thrown out for being too ragged and replaced with something fresh made by Marinette’s own hands.

She embroiders little fairy wings into the clothes normally, because that’s what her cloaked wards look like most times and the kids like it and its technically the logo for the bakery and there’s a million reasons she does it.

It is, perhaps, her first mistake.

(“It was certainly not your first,” Chloé will snark one dayin the future.)

Because now Marinette has an army of magical children learning to wield their powers and not fear them and they’re all wearing what can be considered her insignia and uh oh, it looks a lot like Mari is some sort of up and coming mob boss who uses kids and prostitutes and the homeless as runners. People on the street start calling her the Pixie, start referring to Chloé—her second in all things just as Chat had been her equal—as Wasp, as Yellowjacket, as the Unseelie.

(They cannot seem to pick a name for her, but Pixie is all but engraved in stone. Mari is not sure who coined it, and she doesn't think she wants to know.)

The first time the whole situation is brought to her attention, she punches the idiot who dared even imply such a thing so hard she knocks him out.

Because look. The kids are hers right? And she watches out for the people near her, makes sure the working girls are treated as well as they can be and offers the homeless extra food and a dry place to wait out the storm. She offers her hand and gives them all a place to rest, to eat, to exist without expectations or consequences.

She does that because she’s kind, because it hurts her to see people in need, to see them suffer, not because she’s hoping to gain something from it.

The fact that most of them repay her in gossip or information or bend her ear about the newest goings on in the corrupt elite or filthy underworld is strange, yes, but it’s nice to know what’s going on in the city, she supposes. And one time, Kathy, who works on the corner of Brookes and Gilmore, warned her of a drug raid that saved her an unnecessary trip to the police station so it’s not like it doesn't have it’s uses.

But mostly, Mari doesn't really think about all the information that’s unintentionally or otherwise passed onto her. She remembers it all, because it’s rude not to listen when people talk to her, but nothing comes of normally.

Not until Serrure—now twelve and well versed in the magic of illusions and glamors and knows almost as much about this city as her or the Bats—bursts into the bakery one day and grabs Mari away from the front counter right in the middle of a customer ordering. She should, perhaps, be a little angry at that but Tony, one of the older boys and just shy of sixteen, steps into her place almost immediately, so.

And then Serrure speaks and everything is pushed aside in favour of the next words to fall from his lips.

“Someone took Sophie,” he says and she nearly sees red.

After Serrure, Sophie has been here the longest. She is the youngest of them all, only seven, but oh so clever and kind and while she looks nothing like her, everyone calls her Mini-Mari. If Serrure is her beloved first son, Sophie is her treasured daughter.

She’s out the door in the next moment, storming her way to their base. She has Sophie and a handful of extra kids back by sunset, a little frightened, but no worse for wear. She doesn’t make a big deal out of it, besides making sure that the idiots who dared cross her never do so again, but word gets out.

Soon, her kids and teens and adults begin giving her more than just information, they begin giving her problems. Ones she’s meant to fix because she’s Pixie. She’s safety, she’s protection, she’s the one the people start to turn to for help.

And enter stage left, one Jason Todd who’s all snark and charm and smiles wrapped up in a nice leather bow and tall enough that Mari likely could climb him like a tree. If that was something she wanted, she guesses.

(She wants. She just won’t admit.)

He becomes a regular at the bakery and befriends most of her kids.

Mari’s wary when he first takes an interest in them. They’ve been hurt and a lot of them are still adjusting to being safe and it doesn't matter that this man is hot enough to burn, if he steps even a toe out of line with her kids she’ll make him wish he was never even born.

But, she stops worrying eventually. The kwami like him well enough, but seem to think something’s odd about him—but its Gotham, who isn’t strange?—and both Serrure and Sophie take to him like ducks to water and they’re both good judges of character.

There’s a certain intuition they both have that reminds Marinette just a bit too much about herself and pure magic. Not for the first time does she wonder if they got such strong magic from their parents or if it cropped up in them randomly, fostered by fortune and chance and the magic that’s so deeply seeped into the bones of her bakery it’ll be here long after she’s gone.

And, okay, so she was a little right to be wary because Jason was mostly there to investigate her. Far too many people respect her and are loyal to her and she has a veritable orphanage in her pocket and also Harley and Ivy like her and it just- it doesn’t look good right?

But Jason’s a good detective and it doesn't take him long at all to see that Mari is just as sweet and kind and loving as she appears to be. Not long after that, Red Hood declares Pixie and all of hers, under his protection. She, of course, is more than capable of taking care of her and hers, and the underworld knows this, has seen it, but he does it anyway.

The news, of course, gets back to Mari and she is… confused. Why would the Red Hood do something like that? She’s heard talk of him being sweet on kids, but to claim her? They’ve never even met.

Bonus points for Jason being there when she’s told about it. He kind of raises his eyebrow at her because, huh, that was fast, and then spends the next few minutes talking up the Red Hood to her much to her utter bafflement.

He actually keeps doing that too, talking up the Red Hood. Mari thinks he has a crush on the man for the longest time because of it. Until he reveals he is Red Hood, then she just wants to punch his stupidly handsome face for being such an idiot.

Shit happens from there and things go down and the two spend a couple of months dancing around each other and intentionally and unintentionally ruling the criminal underworld and at one point Marinette definitely punches Bruce and Batman in the face—separately, much to Jason’s unending joy—and she also definitely adopts Duke/Signal as well because that poor boy needs to know he’s not alone.

And it’s just them being domestic and badass and lowkey raising an army of children and falling in love while the kwami and the kids and Chloé are all in the background just yelling at them to get together already!

Which, they do. Eventually. After all the secrets come out and Jason knows about the magic and Order and meets Mari’s other friends, ie Kagami, Luka and Adrien who are all intimidating for wildly different reasons. And Mari finds out that Jason died and came back (which earns him the nickname firebird btw) and that he was a Robin once upon a time but is now Red Hood and oh my kwami it all makes sense now.

Jason confesses like three times via classic Victorian romance novel quotes because he’s a fucking literature nerd but it’s not until he basically spells it out for Mari does she really understand. it’s all very sweet and heartwarming and then the pair duck into one of the empty pocket dimensions they have lying around and aren’t seen for three days.

(No one really goes to look for them tbh)

Chloé definitely teases them about early honeymoons and things but besides the two being even more ridiculously lovey-dovey than usual, life goes back to normal. Or as normal as it gets for them. 

And they all live happily ever after the end.

[fringenotes]

Swachh Bharat, Delhi Air Pollution, Why Govt fails big time?

It is again that time of the year in Delhi. Monsoon is over, Winter (thanks to changing climate) is yet to come, but air is slightly cold and foggy. Noise related to pollution has again started to appear on social media time lines - Posts on Paddy stub burning, trucks coming, open construction etc. But fact of the matter is that winter of 2017 is going to be as much polluted if not less than winter of 2016 which was as bad as that of 2015. Before the hidden politician amongst us jumps and starts looking at performance of rhetoric driven AAP Govt, let us look at performance of another regime which is also trying to another big problem plaguing India and that is cleanliness in India.

PM Modi launched a drive to make India clean on 15th Aug 2014. Work started on a war footing with words backed by large budgets & media campaigns.  Govt has spent/allocated more than 26000 Cr ($3.5 bn) on Swachha Bharat since 2014 but there is hardly any impact seen on the ground. Despite 'in your face' campaigns, large money spending, the situation has not improved at all. Take a stroll in any of our marquee cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Varansi, Agra etc and landscape remains as dirty as ever. Earlier there was just garbage all over now there is garbage with hoardings of Clean India! There are campaigns and big talk of toilets being built every where but in reality, everything is as it was prior to 2014 except an addition of storage room aka a dysfunctional toilet in every rural household and this futile exercise has consumed close to $ 3.5 bn in hard cash.Now  again before we start looking at failure of BJP and its inability to move things, we need to ponder and need to look beyond parties. Its not AAP / BJP / Congress failure but a failure of Govt or rather a failure of the way the Govt thinks. 

If one look carefully and analyse the way govt acts it will come out that Indian government rarely thinks in terms of performance, end result, or NPS score of target consumers / customers but always think in terms of money being spend / allocated and scheme names. This though process has led to a scenario where whole government thought process is limited to budget / cess / allocations & vanity matrices like 100% literacy, 100% village electrification (If 10% houses get electricity, its considered electrified for the purpose of govt record) and naming all such schemes after Nehru Ji, Gandhi Ji and now on Atal ji and DeenDayal ji. 

If there is any doubt on this line of Govt thinking, kindly look at advertisements released by various Govt under various regimes. It does not matter if advertisement was released by Jayalalitha or Karunanidhi, Mayawati or Akhilesh, Manmohan Singh or Modi, the template remains same.  Some scheme name, big photo graph of the leader along with data on quantum of huge crores being spent,  so many families benefitting, blah blah. Suddenly you wonder if there was really a regime change or the same set of people are still running the government under a different set of masks!

Hence If one looks at Swach Bharat campaign from government perspective, whole campaign looks super success full with  26,000 Cr allocated, more than 52 million toilets built, India is on way to become super clean. But the reality on ground is totally different. Was there any issue on the Govt intent? NO, Govt was as determined as it can be but core issue has been thought process where Govt can only think from budget outlays. Nobody focussed on fundamental problems related to toilets/sanitation and challenges related to it. 

Fact of the matter is that India is neither ready nor can afford western model of toilets. First there are no sewage system in any of the villages or towns and on top of it there is hardly any water. In India the difference between have nots and haves is just one simple thing - access to clean running water. Only rich and middle class have access to it while rest of the India battles for few liters of potable water every day. With focus on having toilets,  a person who was using 300 ml water in open defactaion earlier,  now needs 3 liter water at his house and this house has no running water no access to sewer lines and no place to build sewage pits. The house in villages are either interconnected or clustered together having no scope to build open pit system. Even if one builds an open system, what to do during monsoon flooding or filling of tanks in 2 years as there is no manpower working in these areas? So if one looks at the constraint on the ground - no water, no waste disposal system, the idea of “Swachh Bharat” by building toilets was DOA ( dead on arrival) however the whole Govt machinery just went ahead with the plan -  as it knows one thing best which is to create a budget and collect money for it. So whole Govt went ahead with 26,000 Cr in hand even without understanding the basic problem of sanitation and challenges related to water, disposal, treatment etc.

So again before passionate hidden politicians jump and start blaming Modi govt. pause and see what happened at Delhi. 

Delhi Govt in all earnestness appointed IIT Kanpur to do study and find out the cause of pollution in Delhi. The report which has its own serious flaws in methodologies / simplistic observations / conclusions,  was still adopted by Delhi Govt but none of the simplistic solution was implemented by it. Why? Simple reason is  that solutions were like 1000 cuts war on pollution rather than any big bang budget approach and to make matter worse the improvement would have showed by 2022 (election is in 2020). Since there is no big budget allocation, no ribbon cutting and no big hoardings, the report and solutions have been conveniently parked in a cold storage. 

So what is the solution? The only solution to all such problems is one that is delinking budgets from any action. Govt needs to think in form of solutions/ results rather than in terms of budgets and big bang approach.  For example in the quoted IIT Kanpur report, road side dirt in summer had very high weightage. A small team could have taken a cluster of Delhi and implemented changes to see if vacuuming the road and covering construction is creating any localised impact and what could solve this. Lot of A/B testing in startup parlance but with focus on finding solution rather than big bang talk with focus on election!. Likewise for Swachh Bahart, It would have been better if Govt had done trials on some select cities like Agra, Varanasi, Bangalore etc and figured out what is working and what is not working. Or in villages, focus could have been on building community toilets rather than at individual homes.  

Executing small projects is not complicated and there is enough talented manpower with the Govt in addition to the large budgets, but then small projects don’t get allocation or gravitas from the top. Further these projects can’t be run by politicians as they are tied to 5 year horizon and neither by bureaucrats with transferable jobs. This project needs people with long term engagement as well as skin in the game with suitable rewards as well as accountability and punishments. Until the existing system thinks in terms of a long term model with proper accountability and life time postings, India will remain refugee to musical chair policy making and will slowly decline to a hell hole in terms of quality of life in no times as policies designed for salvery don’t work in democracy on a long term basis! The end

[moriganstrongheart]

Stardust – Review

by Neil Gaiman 1998, HarperCollins Publishers Paperback, 288 pages, $12.50 CAD

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Good: Faithful to fairy tale genre Bad: Problematic, uninteresting and flawed

​[ ! ] Spoiler Warning

In my attempt to evaluate the quality of Stardust, I was torn on whether its fairy tale format should come into play when making my final decision . Neil Gaiman makes it clear in his introduction that Stardust was written in the style of fairy tales he was familiar with as a child, and the book’s tagline similarly describes it as a “Fairy Tale for Grown-ups”. And yet, I can’t help but judge it as more than just a fairy tale, even if it never really pretends to be anything but. If experienced only as intended, all of Stardust’s elements are what one would expect from a traditional European folktale. However, I’m not entirely sure if genre faithfulness is enough to excuse its many problematic elements—elements that really shouldn’t have a place in a modern story. I also feel the need to approach the book’s writing at face value; despite its apparent prestige, there’s a lot therein that embodies the worst of what fairy tales have to offer—including one-dimensional characters, flat exposition and abrupt shifts in pacing. As I was reading, I found myself making excuses for these issues, with the understanding that the book was simply meant to be a callback. After some reflection though, this isn’t fair to me or writing as a whole, since I have to be able to say whether I enjoyed the experience of reading, rather than whether the book worked as intended.

What stuck with me the most as I was reading were the many problematic elements scattered throughout Stardust. Tristran is a wholly unlikeable protagonist, pulling on the trope of the Stupid but Brave Hero, with a dash of dimwittedness that’s supposed to make him appear charming. I found him annoying and misogynistic, and he never really changes in any meaningful way. Things just happen to him—not as a result of his actions, but just because the story demands it. Rather than him making any meaningful choices or having any kind of agency, the universe just moves him along to the next plot development. Him having magical powers and being revealed as the child of royalty just reinforced how uninteresting his character was from the beginning, since it feels as though he was always going to succeed, regardless of the eventual outcome. Most troubling of all is how he treats women around him—an issue that extends beyond his character to encompass the book as a whole. He either treats every woman he meets as objects, or as tools to get the object-woman that he wants. The only time he has any meaningful interactions with other characters is when they are men. In fact, even though he spends more than half the book with her, I can’t recall him ever having an intimate conversation with Yvaine, even at the end when the two unconvincingly fall in love with each other.

As mentioned, these issues extend beyond Tristran, with the other women in the story—the witches, the one woman on the skyship—being tools without any personality, or there to fulfill the Women with Power are Evil trope, or to further the myth that a woman’s only goal is to be young and sexy. There’s even a troubling amount of scenes in which Gaiman describes female characters in an unnecessarily erotic manner—another problematic trope often seen in books by male authors. In this same vein, it’s also troubling that both Yvaine and Una are salves for the majority of time they are characters in the book. It’s as if it’s not enough that women have no personality or agency in Stardust, they must also be held against their will and forced into servitude for them to be interesting. It’s made worse by the fact that Yvaine and Tristran are involved in an abduction as romance subplot, and that Una’s only way of freeing herself from salvery is to whore herself out to a gullible farm boy.

I could spend a lot more time on exploring Stardust’s problematic elements, but I think I’ve made my point as to why I had a difficult time appreciation it for what it is. It’s a shame because there are certainly moments of brilliance in the book; times where it feels like Gaiman reached beyond the fairy tale format to give us something worth reading. But these moments are few and far in between, to the point I can’t recall any specific examples as I write this review. If it were the case that these problems are inseparable from the fairy tale genre, I think I’d be more willing to excuse how problematic and uninteresting the story is. However, it feels like either Gaiman picked the worst aspects of what makes up a fairy tale, or he missed the mark with Stardust. It ends up feeling like he’s using the genre as an excuse to tell a misogynistic, broken and wholly unappealing boyhood fantasy—something which may have been more difficult to justify in another genre. It really is a wasted opportunity, because I know that modern fairy tales can be better than this; J.K. Rowling’s Tales of Beedle the Bard is the first example that comes to mind, which utilized the fairy tale format in a much more pleasing way. I’ve been reading more from Neil Gaiman recently, and I have to be honest that Stardust has made me seriously question whether I should continue to read his work in the future, if this is the kind of story he feels worth sharing with the world.

Official Book Website

[caninedragons]

Finished!!! Spoilers below

Ultimatly I think it was just Okay. It's not my favorite but it's not my least favorite either. I'll need more time to sit with it and discuss the book before I'd say my opinion is solid it however as of right now, a few hours after completion I'd say it's my third favorite of this arc.

I've never been a huge fan of the Breath of Evil, it's introduction in book 13 implied that it was a sentient plant and I HATED it. Than this book came around (with an obvious this book only idea) and it's now a weapon being used by a THIRD secret puppeteer I much prefer it. Cotton-evilface and Freedom are interesting but I wish they were set-up and foreshadowed in the earlier books. I believe Sutherland mentioned that she wish she was able to plan book 15 plot points in the most recent hang out, and this is likely what she was talking about. The first few books very clearly setting up Wasp as THE bad guy and than dropped that like the pathtic fly she is

100% wish Sutherland had the idea of Freedom and Cotton-don't-remember-the-last-part-of-name and went with their plot from the start. A lot of the explanation and exploration of the BoE could of been easier to drop and explore cause as it stands now, both are confusing as heck. Also this plot is way less frustrating and icky than the slavery plot that hangs over this arc. 🙃

Also we were robbed of Bullfrog memories and I will not stand for this. I must know more about him. FREEDOM EVEN MENTIONED SHE WANTED TO SEE HIS MEMORIES!!! Don't taunt me like this!!!!

Epilogue was frustrating though I fully execpted the resolution to the HiveWing racsim and the rebuilding of the Silkwings and LeafWings to be so. I'm not the right person to elborate futher on this however so I won't.

Few things about arc in general.:

I absoultly hate that I must now accept the history of Pantala is the way it is. I guess HiveWings are the descendants a Clearsight and the Beetlewings became the Silk and Leaf wings somehow (that part of book 13 confused me so I'm fuzzy on the details). Nevermind that book 11 and 12 seemed to setting up that the Clearsight thing was a lie but whatever. It's cannon. I don't like it, but I'll live.

Ultimately however this arc is messy, but fun. It has a lot of fun ideas and concepts that I really like and just wish weren't so tied to the mess of the salvery plot. This arc suffered from a lack of planning and structure issues however this is mostly the fault that these books are pumped out so fast that it impacts it's quality.

I hope this is the last arc, I love WoF but it's quality has been steadily decreasing (which is not Sutherland's fault, she only has so much time) and I think it's time for it end. also another arc will make me hate book 14 for shoving so much unnecessary shit

My copy of Flames of Hope doesn't come till the 7th 😭😭😭

[raygirlramblings]

I saw the Rayman discussion and now from a purely curious stand point: was there more story in the older games? I've only played Origins and Legends and assumed they were at least somewhat indicative of the rest of the series with some change because there always is. Our room mate just scooped up Origins one day for us to play after we finished Kirby so went into it not knowing anything and as a platformer not expecting very much story. (exceptions I know). (Total blast to play multiplayer).

I know people are going to disagree with me, but the Rayman series has never had super deep or complex stories.  Even Rayman 2 and 3 which undoubtedly have the deepest plots tend to just ride on the ‘bad guy do the thing, Rayman go stop the thing bad’ concept.  On a score from Tetris to Final Fantasy, Rayman would be in Super Mario territory. 

In Rayman 2′s case the whole setting with a lot darker compared to the first game despite the goofness of the lead baddie (Admiral Razorbeard).  The world was darker, there was polution and salvery all around you, and there was a real feeling in the air that you were always being watched.  

In Rayman 3 the storyline was a lot sillier (the bad guy Andre gets swallowed by Rayman’s frog friend Globox and is snarking away in his stomach for over half the game XD) BUT you had a more complex series of storylines with Rayman having to find a cure for Globox and various enemies forming alliances to stop you.

In comparison Origins and Legends go along the lines of a party game, without a deep plot and more fun antics.  Personally i have no problem with that. I love both games and think they serve their purpose so well :D  Glad to hear you enjoyed them too!

[a-h-arts]

Food For Thought, About History and Today--But Not Sowell's Best Work Last month, in December 2016, maybe as a Christmas gift to himself, Thomas Sowell announced that he was retiring. Technically, he announced that he was retiring from writing a syndicated column, but at age 86, it seems likely that he does not intend to write any new books, either. This is unfortunate, but his work is done. There can be little doubt that Sowell’s many works, taken together, by themselves would be adequate to educate someone raised by wolves on everything a person needs to know about economics, political economy, and much of history. Go to Amazon

Should Be In Every Library This book is lobster bisque for the brain. Sowell has a gift for conveying volumes of information in a condensed entertaining manner. I feel generally knowledgeable and have myriad directions to go for specific interests. (I think I'll investigate the Ottoman empire and the Byzantine next based on the peculiarities discussed within and my shame for knowing so little about civilizations which significantly shaped our world. Go to Amazon

The Interrelationship Between Conquests and Cultures Explained Sowell is an extraordinary scholar who is able to share his knowledge is a way that even those not familiar with a subject can grasp what he is trying to convey. As usual, a master at ferreting out how history has impacted on our lives. Go to Amazon

Good narrative and lots of data; sobering and sort of uplifting This book is a good historical narrative, backed up with lots of data, a steady (definitely not shrill) sense of ethics and an understanding of the scope of human behavior. Go to Amazon

Incisive and necessary. Once again, Sowell uncovers fallacies and misconceptions through citing historical references, and multi layered arguments. This isn’t so much a reimagining of conquests and cultures, but a revelation of their true nature. Brilliant. Go to Amazon

Sowell does a tour de force of the human history ... Sowell does a tour de force of the human history of the populated continents showing how climate, land forms, religious beliefs, and chance influenced the way human societies developed in various parts of the world. His thesis is probably open to question as any reference to historical trends would be, but he offers sound reasoning and facts for his conclusions. I was greatly enlightened, as I have been by all of Dr. Sowell's books. Go to Amazon

Tells the truth about Salvery Excellent book by the good Doctor. Not a light read but chock full of goodies and worth the time. Discloses the ignorance surrounding the "Slave" issues and the grievance industry. Go to Amazon

Sad but true depiction of America's culture. Bad narrator. Overall Brilliant!!! I was afraid that this book would be a bit ... Five Stars Five Stars Five Stars Five Stars Exceptional

[epic-summaries]

My mother is currently reading the books, so we have been talking about them a lot.

Or how they made Arya make the Frey pies and made it seem like she single handedly destroyed all of House Frey. Sure they didn’t have Manderly or Lady Stoneheart in the show but the Frey pies wasn’t just for shock value. Manderly was giving the Boltons and the Freys a message, the North Remembers (And is also a reference to the Rat Cook Story). Marderly also didn’t care about living or dying because he expected to die, there was a point made that he only brought old men with him. But hey shock value is more important. And make sure Arya looks like a badass. She had no reason in the show to go all Sweeney Todd on them in the show.

D&D hated Stannis is what I heard. So, that makes Stannis’ storyline in the show make a little more sense. I feel sorry for Barry because Dany needed multiple advisors. Also didn’t like that they didn’t include the Penny Tyrion story line, Tyrion grew as a person in ADWD, Penny showed him and the readers the kindness of the world. Tyrion kept thinking about how naive and stupid she was, but by the end, she was rubbing off on him. Which that’s who Brienne is too, naive and honourbond who belives in the chilvaric tales of the world.

Also reminds of of Gerald Hightower going to Jaime when Aerys raped his wife to conceive Dany, We protect the King, not judge him. Yeah, in the context of the story it’s a bad thing he said that. That’s a bad thing.

My mother and I have been complaining about the sexism of the last season. Sansa is now just a mean girl and D&D said one of the reasons she hated Dany was because Dany was pretty. Wait what?! Seriously? Yeah Sansa was always into gallant stories and pretty dresses, she was a mean girl to Arya, but there are times in the Eyrie where she thinks about her family and how much she misses them. She’s not all mean girl and she shows Sandor compassion. Not only that, Sansa never hated Mageary for being a pretty girl who became queen instead of her. But Dany? She’s a threat because she’s pretty and came to help save your people? But independence! And she’s queen now (which makes no sense and you did Dorne wrong again D&D), so we aren’t sexist. Arya killed the night knights even though it made no thematic or narrative sense. She’s a badass, so we can’t be sexist. Now let’s kill our one POC female character in chain when she lived her life in salvery, just so we can go bitches be crazy when Dany turns. Wouldn’t that be cool? And Jon who has done nothing this season will have to kill her. Oh poor Jon, forced to kill the woman he loved because she went crazy, oh poor Jon.

D&D took took Littlefinger’s “Chaos is a ladder” quote to heart. Only the “strong” and “mature” and “smart” people survive. I see them going, “dude survival of the fittest” without getting what human evolution is.

I really enjoyed your post on the Sansa/Daenerys feud. Something I hated about the Starks in Season 8 is Sansa/Arya's kneejerk dislike of Daenerys (at least, before episode 5). They actually had Sansa say "She's not one of us!" And that recalls nothing so much as Cersei telling Joffrey "Anyone who isn't us is the enemy." When Season 8 validates Cersei and repudiates Ned Stark, things gone done got crazy.

It was actually Arya that said that but it’s not like the scene didn’t frame this as a shared sentiment among the Starks. That was basically “we don’t like girlfriend who we don’t know and don’t care to get to know. She is not one of us and that makes our hostility and pettiness totally justified”. My god, do I hate that scene.

It pains me that they did this to Sansa and Arya. It infuriates me that their supposed victorious ending not only rewarded and validated a rather prejudiced attitude but also leaned heavily into making their abusers define who they are. To be clear, this is not because I expect them to be “good victims” who can only rise above their trauma or behave in the most moral of ways, neither am I saying that experiencing a change due to a trauma is necessarily a bad thing, but the show fundemntally changed who Sansa and Arya are to become some distorted version of their abusers. Sansa was turned into a cross between Cersei and Littlefinger, a person willing to betray and manipulate even her own brother to her advantage and who honest to god smirked over the death of an innocent woman and used it to goad Jaime. Arya became someone whose first instinct is to kill and who absorbed an exclusionary xenophobic view that came out of nowhere. I’ve mostly put the stupidity of last season’s conflict between Sansa and Arya out of my mind because it was so illogical and forced, but the writers genuinely tried to affirm that this is who these two women became (and pls don’t @ me about how they were totally plotting together from the start to bring down Littlefinger. No, they were not and the show’s attempt to make it look like that post-fact was painfully transparent)

The show changed the core of who the Starks are in service to the plot then inexplicably framed this change as a good thing we should side with, which hits at the heart of this series. I am addmittely very attached to the book!Starks but this goes beyond my preference for my favorites to be about changing the very meaning of ASOIAF. This series was never about rejecting ideals or branding those who believe in them idiots. It was never about validating the worldview of the Cerseis and Tywins and Petyrs of the world. It’s about the struggle to hold onto your idealism in a cold and corrupt world that tarnishs it and hollows it out and that tries to convince you that idealism is a chain that brings you down and that ruthless pragmatism is intelligence. It’s about our heroes looking into an abyss that tries to convince them that letting the cold in is the smart thing to do, withstanding a world that tries to strip them of their beliefs and saying “no, you move”. The theme of this series lies in characters like the Starks, Davos and Brienne trying to do the right thing even when it looks hopeless. Especially when it looks hopeless. It lies in “he could have tried, he could have died”, in “is there no true knights among you?”, in “he was no true knight”, in “the North remembers”. The message is that honor lives on and trying to do the right thing always matters even if you lose your life. And so yes, it absolutely does go back to Ned Stark, not only as the person whose teachings and ideals the Starks espouse but as the first casualty of the show’s misunderstanding of the main thesis of ASOIAF.

Game of Thrones took the surface victory of nihilistic players and made it its message. It genuinely embraced Cersei’s sentiment that you either win or you die in the game of thrones, and affirmed the worldview that honor is futile and stupid and gets you killed. Oh and also that you cannot escape your past, your trauma or your paternity. Screw idealism and trying to do the right thing. That’s pointless and hopeless. Except that it is not pointless in the books, it never was. Ned died but his legacy, his benevolent ruling ideology, and his honor won by inspiring not only his children to hold onto their ideals but the entire North to rise up. Ned stands as clear proof that Cersei and the entire Lannister ideology is wrong. ADWD openly goes to bat for Ned’s legacy and what he stood for. It proves that the argument that honor is stupid and manipulative pragmatism is better is bullshit.

But the show did the exact opposite and actually went to great lengths to frame honor as this hollow thing that only forestalls and impedes. It scoffed at idealism and made it this naive thing that brings the characters down, which is exactly how Littlefinger described it to Ned in the first book. The show made the North abandon the Starks despite setting up the Northern plot from the books and having Sansa deliver an impassioned speech about loyalty, only to prove her painfully wrong. Jon failed when he bargained on how Ramsay’s apathetic view of his men’s lives would make them abandon him, even when these men watched Ramsay coldly fire at his own forces, but Sansa succeeded when she withheld the information about the Knights of the Vale. It was only natural for Sansa to then brand Ned and Robb as naive men who made stupid mistakes. Why wouldn’t she when the show turned Robb’s story into a simplistic tale of a guy who was led astray by love and who was blamed for the horrendous treachery of the Freys and Boltons, when Ned’s honor was scoffed at and undercut by the show itself at every turn? See also that lovely detour in the Dragon pit scene last season where Jon’s refusal to lie to Cersei was designed to have everyone roll their eyes at the stupid idiot who put his precious honor above a needed cease fire.

It sure fits the story then to have Jon bending the knee to Dany stripped from its foundational motive of her earning his loyalty by answering the call for help to become about his feelings for her. It fits to have Sansa try and push Jon’s claim without caring about his wants or the precarious position this puts him in or even his emotional state because she knows he loves Dany. It fits to have a stunning mix of manipulation, xenophobia, hostility and ungratefulness framed as not only smart but something to be validated. It fits to have the Starks’ triumph be so soured and so meaningless in its willingness to sacrifice people for their advantage. By all means do have them pursue a plan that would necessitate a conflict between Jon and Dany all for Northern independence, or hint that Bran might have known what was going to happen and kept silent.

And when you pair that with them trying to evoke sympathy for Cersei but make Dany into a fascist (don’t think I missed the Nuremberg callbacks) and demonize her visually, with them validating Cersei’s racism by focusing on the Unsullied and the Dothraki brutalizing the King’s Landing population, just what message are they trying to send. Whose worldview are they trying to validate and why?

I missed the Starks this season, especially the girls. I missed the Arya who makes friends with everyone despite rigid Westerosi attitudes towards class and race, who is extremely sensitive to injustice and who would be the first to cheer a Breaker of Chains. I missed the Sansa whose compassion extended to even enemies and whose entire conception of rulership was about protecting people. I missed the Bran who is so connected to Winterfell that he compares its survival and its perseverance to his own. I missed the kids who held onto their compassion, their loyalty and their ideals in the face of a corrupt world trying to convince them such sentiments are futile. I missed the Starks.

[bethanydelleman]

Don’t Write Off Sir Thomas

Sir Thomas is a very complex character and it's important to understand him. He is both a deeply moral person and involved in slavery and that makes him human.

Yes, Sir Thomas is probably a slave owner, or a person who invests in sugar plantations that use slavery. But that is not how he sees himself. He probably doesn't even think about it much, he sees himself as a moral father, a good member of parliament, and a good husband. And the tricky part is that he can reasonably be both.

Slavery is bad (obviously), but we are also on a very precarious high horse when we judge Sir Thomas and the rest of Regency England. Most people then probably didn't think about the origin of their sugar, just like we today don't. Most people probably thought slavery was unfortunate, but how else do they get cotton or tea? It's just how the economy works! It wasn't in front of them, they had their own problems, they forgot, or they reasoned, or they justified.

Many many product TODAY (like chocolate and tea) are produced by slaves or in very slave-like conditions, some things in the very same countries. We know, or should know, that companies use child labour and that offshore factories in so many countries are terrible and inhumane. We should know that the cheap products we buy are made by people living in near slavery. It's just how the economy works! It isn't in front of us; we forget, we reason, and we justify.

Sir Thomas is not any better or worse than us. He does what many people do, he compartmentalizes. He does something totally immoral during the day and then comes home and believes he's a moral person. That's just his job (or investment), it's not him. He goes to church, he supports the poor around Mansfield, and tries to raise his children with principles. Just because he's much closer and much more involved in the evil doesn't acquit anyone else. And just because slavery was clearly wrong, doesn't mean that any of us are right.

So instead of just writing off Sir Thomas as evil because he's involved in slavery, we should take a moment to wonder what someone in 200 years will think of us, and our economy, and our rationalizations of evil.

(This is why the 1999 adaption, which made him into a flatly evil character, did not do anything to forward our understanding of slavery. A nuanced discussion of how a person can both see themselves as moral and be involved in such a distasteful activity is the message we actually need to hear)

[whatthewhat]

Sorry it took so long to reply, Wednesdays and Thursdays are my busy days.

I don’t really want this to deteriorate to pointing fingers either. But I’m going to be frank here, and I don’t mean it as an attack, but I don’t feel like my point is really being addressed. My point was that I think it’s a bad plan to try and antagonize the most powerful woman in the world, when you need her army ( and even despite the food situation, I don’t think Sansa actually wants Danny gone, so passively aggressively calling Danny out doesn’t solve anything and only serves to irritate her, something I’m sure Sansa knows) and I just don’t understand how bringing up Daenerys’ past mistakes explains Sansa’s actions. That’s what’s bothered me about this whole debate. They’ve both done some less than honorable things (Daenerys more so, but she’s also just had more power for longer). So I was a little annoyed that this has somehow turned into me defending things Daenerys did seasons ago bc its a completely different arguement and not one I particularly want to have on this post. If you want to debate that I have another post we can discuss it on or I’m sure I’ll make another one eventually (because I think Daenerys and Sansa get screwed over a lot by showrunners and fans to make them seem worse than they actually are, ie comparing Sansa to Cersei)

And I’ll go on to to say even if Daenerys is as bad as people seem to think, that just enhances my point. That it’s a bad idea provoke her. If she is truly one step from Cersei (which some people seem to think, I’m not saying you do, I don’t know what your stance is on that, but there are a lot of people who do) then Sansa should definitely be playing nice until they don’t need her anymore. Because Cersei would (is) 100% leave them all to die. And I feel like this got misconstrued, I didn’t mean to say I think Danny should or will march south or that its a good idea for her if she does, my point was if Danny thinks these people are her enemies and she’s as uncaring and rash as people seem to think why shouldn’t she? If they are her enemies and she truly has no compassion for her enemies and she lacks foresight, then what does a few more thousand northerners add to an army of the dead that’s already 100,000+ strong? That army will surely march over Cersei too before it gets to her. That’s two enemies down. So why should Sansa risk that just because this situation sucks for her. I just don’t see what angle this benefits Sansa. I guess it might endear her to the northern lords, but they already love her, so that doesn’t really seem good enough.

Also, I never meant to say Danny doesn’t make mistakes. She absolutely does and honestly I like her more for it. Despite the salvery thing, if she hadn’t been so rash and kept her head she could have possibly ruled Meereen more peacefully. What the masters did was unforgivable, but what Danny did in return was only marginally better. But I think she does learn from it. She learns in Meereen she has to work with her enemies sometimes and destroying everything that gets in your way isn’t always the solution (as we see play out in how she decides not to just burn all of Westeros down to win, even though she absolutely could) although I would argue there is a time and place for it. There is a notable difference between her ruling at the beginning and at the end. She doesn’t always listen and still acted rashley sometimes, but she was paying attention. She revised her laws at the request of others and in the books I’m pretty sure the marriage was hizdar’s idea. Or at the very least one of her advisors ( I checked and it was a bit of both, a Meereenese advisor suggested it, but Hizdar encourages it). She is trying to learn, but she still has her flaws. Also the show frequently leaves out her kinder moments from the books. Which I guess is a time thing, but they also found time to add in a bit about her feeding people to dragons. Which is a tad ooc character considering in the books she refuses to take Meereenese relatives of the seiging Yunkai hostage (having learned from her earlier mistakes), even though Ser Barristan himself advised it.

Also just for the record, I only had a problem with Sansa’s reception after I thought about it a bit. I didn’t watch the episode and immediately rage at Sansa bc how dare she not love my dragon queen. I was disappointed they didn’t really get along at first when I think that would be a fun dynamic (and they still might), but I understood why Sansa was upset and in return I understood why Danny was irritated by her cool reception. It only started to really bother me, when I really thought about it. A few things annoyed me this episode, so I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. And then I realized it doesn’t really make sense for Sansa to act like this. To me it doesn’t really fit her character. One of Sansa’s best qualities is that she knows when to pick a fight and when not to. She played along with Littlefinger until she didn’t need him and then finally got rid of him. So why is it different with Danny? She needs Danny so why pick a fight when she gains nothing. If Danny is just, then Jon chose right, if Danny is as bad as Cersei then they can deal with that when the time is right. Now really isn’t that time. If Danny can be an ally, they need her. They were willing to ally with Cersei if at all possible. I just can’t understand why Sansa would create more tension right now and I don’t believe she didn’t know how Danny would react.

Am I the only one that thinks the show writers have gotten off to a very bad start with Sansa’s character? And I’m not bashing Sansa here. Just the writers. And I’m not going to get into the fact that they have now given her bullshit conflict with other female characters for two seasons now for reasons that seemed like little more then petty squabbling, playing heavily into the trope in media that woman should always be at each other’s throats, cause thats an argument for a different time.

But like Sansa’s behavior doesn’t make any sense to me. She’s suppose to be smart. Arya says she’s smart, Tyrion thinks she’s smart and I think she’s smart. So why is she trying to piss off the one woman who can actually help them? Like yeah, feeding the army won’t be easy, But you are literally going to die without her so maybe you should try and figure it out. Instead of pointlessly provoking her? For everyone’s sake?

Also Dany is the last person who actually needs to worry about the white walkers. All of her mainland allies are dead. She can just hole up on dragonstone and just wait her enemies out. Then swoop in with her dragons and burn them all. Winterfell would be the first to go. (Now of course Daenerys doesn’t bc she’s not evil and actually wants to help people, but no one’s gonna acknowledge that bit are they?)

Why would Sansa try to make enemies with her? What does that get her? Absofuckinglutely nothing. Except making the most powerful woman in the world your enemy. Like I just don’t understand Sanaa’s game here, because if she was actually worried about Daenerys being mad or power hungry shouldn’t she be doing the opposite? Trying to cozy up to her and figure out Daenerys’ game and avoid her wrath, until it’s at least safer to strike at her. When they don’t absolutely need her armies and there aren’t tens of thousands of Dothraki outside your walls already. She’s playing a very dangerous and unnecessary game with Daenerys’ good nature. And while we all now Dany isn’t petty enough to abandon or turn on them, Sansa has no way of knowing this. And seems to actively worry otherwise.

It just all comes off as lazy writing. Like they needed drama and tension so why not make the two most powerful women in the room hate each other for no reason. (other than Sansa all of a sudden doesn’t understand politics.) like even Arya accepted Danny better than Sansa did.

Like I get why the northerners are wary of Dany. They dislike outsiders and notoriously have little political tact. I understand why Sansa is wary of her. That’s not my point. My point is Sansa gains nothing by picking a fight. She should know better. This doesn’t make any sense and it’s lazy writing at best.

I love Sansa, I really do, and I really hope this shit ends quick.

[melaniedragon]

She could hear them talking about her father. Both sides of the situation was bad. She didn't want to go back to her father, yet sex salvery is probably even worse then her father. She was terrified of the situation.

For a while she continued to escape but eventually tired herself out and sat down on the floor of the room, she held back her tears and only hoped that Biast would be able to save her.

⛓ *capture your muse*

Mel yelled out of shock and pulled herself away from him. She didn’t enjoy being picked up without any warning like that. “Put me down. Please.” She said quietly.