#the north and dorne

[atopvisenyashill]

i want a history of dorne in the century after nymeria conquered it, george i am outside your house right now

i was thinking about the red princes specifically because i started linking them to sansa, bran, and arya as a ruling triumvirate of sorts-

why are they ruling as a triumvirate? it can't be a triplet thing, we've seen twins before and the first twin out rules. there has to be A Reason they decided they should rule equally (do they rule equally? or does one outrank the other two?) at the same time.

i love the idea of one of them being disabled and relying on the other two to help them rule, the way doran relies on oberyn in many ways to be his man in the field - although again it does beg the question "but WHY."

i think with a bran/sansa/arya scenario, where bran is ruling but is known to not be able to have children, so his heirs will come from his sisters, one of whom is more Political Game minded, one of whom is more Active In The Field minded, it makes for an interesting triumvirate where everyone has their own role - that sort of head, hands, and heart sweet spot.

HOWEVER i'm not sure a disabled man would Have to share power in this way which is why i lean towards the oldest and disabled red prince being a woman and not a man. given how closely this happens after the rhoynar come to dorne, i wonder if it was a trade off in some way - with too much doubt on whether a disabled girl can rule, she willingly lets her siblings rule beside her to ensure peace, and in turn they get power while ensuring their family isn't overthrown for like, the daynes or yronwoods.

i am intrigued by the fact that they suppressed parts of rhoynar custom by refusing to allow the orphans to speak their mother tongue. i want to know if this was a trade off for them in some way as well - keep some rhoynar customs like absolute primogeniture but give into some of the pushy andal customs like speaking their language.

was one of them a warrior? again with the bran/sansa/arya parallels here, with one of the girls potentially being a warrior because the red princes are known for being involved in many wars so....

they do manage to establish a populated town in dorne, something that's historically been a bit difficult. they get trade going, which is probably a major factor in building dorne up as a separate kingdom instead of being swallowed up or falling back into the petty kings. again, curious if there will be a sort of parallel here, where bran/arya/sansa can help build up several new towns int he north, something that is historically difficult to do.

[daenysthedreamer101]

[shrips]

and also I dislike the idea that the 7 kingdoms all have distinct court fashions it makes no sense and ignores the homogenizing impacts of imperialism and also the politics of courtly dress.

[mzminola]

That said I think the most fun fusion fic would be to give Bruce the Mance Rayder role. Ex Night's Watch still trying to save the Realms of Men the best way he knows how (by breaking all the rules).

Dick is an orphan Bruce picks up during one of his first self-appointed climbing-back-over-the-Wall-to-spy missions. Barbara is a kissed-by-fire Wildling greenseer. Jason is a Wildling orphan that tries to steal Bruce's Night Brother sword. Cass is a warg who's been feral since running from her dad.

At some point Jason gets it into his head that he needs to Prove He's A Man Now, climbs over the Wall without Bruce, and bridenaps Tim. Whether Tim is a girl or Jason just mistook Tim for one is dealer's choice.

They bicker the entire way back to main camp until Dick runs over to defuse whatever disaster this is, at which point Tim & Dick go "You!!!" because the Drakes were at the Flying Grayson Troupe's last performance before the bandits got them.

[imaginarianisms]

more asoiaf comparisons, parallels & antiparallels to the first dance of the dragons vs the second & final dance of the dragons (& possibly the sixth blackfyre rebellion): the blacks being daenerys i targaryen's supporters, the golds being aegon vi targaryen's supporters, tommen baratheon being a close equivalent to gaemon palehair & his mother essie & sylvenna sand which may be interpreted as a parallel with queen cersei lannister & taena merryweather of myr, trystane truefyre being a close equivalent to aegon/young griff & perkin being jon connington & the shepherd being the new high septon the high sparrow, dalton greyjoy being euron i greyjoy's ancestor & the latter surpassing him, alyn waters later alyn velaryon resembling aurane waters later aurane velaryon & finishing what their ancestors started. history repeats itself.

[rosethroned]

you know what she'd miss living in the north? the slutty dresses warm weather

[atopvisenyashill]

one thing i’m real convinced of i just don’t know WHEN it’s going to happen is the “broken neck.” my evidence for this is all the creepy bog magic already there, “dead faces in the water”, and you don’t have a place called the neck without breaking it lol. plus a parallel to the broken arm/the stepstones - break the neck during the second big war involving northern magic.

what i’m curious about here is that we’ve gotten a few mentions not just of the swamplands bog magic aspects of greywater watch, but also the water magic of the rhoynar. and in fact, there are rhoynar descendants of nymeria’s ships who shipwrecked and never left in the stepstones specifically. then, in twoiaf, we have a maester who explicitly compares dorne to the north. i know these parallels between them exist for a Lot of reasons but i kind of hope we’ll get more weird magic surrounding this. like, the way fire magic seems to be fire magic, it doesn’t matter whether you believe in r’hollor or the fourteen flames or nothing at all, you either have the juice to do fire magic or you don’t! so what if there’s a bit of crossover in this area, when the neck “breaks” - a dornish and northern person both doing very similar magic that gets the same results? or someone who is studied in Both cultures being able to piece together the ~missing piece~ needed for magic to happen?

[ser-zoras]

the riverlands are Appalachia because what is open elsewhere is treated as taboo but still practiced and everyone’s been there forever

the stormlands are the eastern seaboard bc you aren’t growing shit there but at least you got fish but driftmark and dragonstone in particular are New England as some of the places that were first colonized and have since been unfathomably changed in the image of the colonizers

the north is the states that border Canada plus Alaska because they occupy a huge chunk of the country with a subzero population, but white harbor specifically is Halifax, Nova Scotia, because it’s the biggest city for hundreds of miles but is still a bit claustrophobic.

the vale is the Rockies because they are mountainous and the eyrie specifically is Colorado because I associate Colorado with people who are rich and frightening.

dorne is around the Gulf of Mexico but specifically the really nice parts because the impression I get of both Dorne and the Texas coast is that they are hot and fun. However dorne would also included Louisiana because it has an undeserved reputation as a place of debauchery.

the reach is the Midwest because duh. Bread basket. Idk if it’s canon but i also think the reach is pretty religious. Also the Great Lakes are gorgeous and that’s the highgarden vibe.

the crownlands are Maryland, Washington DC, and northeast Virginia. Where else would they be.

and the westerlands are the west coast bc they’re full of people who are pretty and/or blonde who I do not trust at all

[cjbolan]

I mean...I still do feel bad for Aegon. Sure, it doesn't excuse that he became a bad parent and a poor ruler, but who were his role models growing up exactly? People like Otto and Alicent. He's messed up but they *made* him messed up. He didn't even *WANT* to be king. He was forced onto the throne, is it a surprise he's a bad king?

And as for the mistreatment of the bastard sons, it's kind of really a Westeros thing? Where illegitimate children are generally treated like peasants or subhumans and unworthy of respect in general by most of the royal houses? So while Aegon is still wrong, he's just part of a bigger cultural problem.

Ultimately it's the distinction between "empathize" (relate to on an emotional level and understand their motives) and "sympathize" (condone and agree with their beliefs and actions) that most fans are missing. We empathize, but not sympathize, with Aegon.

Well said. While the mistreatment of bastards has a Westerosi cultural component, I think Aegon is much crueler to his bastards than anyone else in Westeros. He’s the only one I’ve seen willingly send his bastards to die.

Everyone else in Westeros either ignores their bastards, like Robert Baratheon did. Or give them shelter and even acknowledge them as their bastards, like Ned Stark and Roose Bolton did. And then there’s Dorne where bastards can live as well as any noble.

Now you got me thinking … the North and Dorne may be the 2 most bastard-friendly parts of Westeros. I wonder why.

[isefyres]

i' have a few faceclaims to cast, i'm gonna try and cast more northerns because you know i'm for the north in this household. I got a few inspirations from some beauties from vikings valhalla and more.

[horizon-verizon]

Hi !!!!

What do you think about the fact that people say that the northman smell ? I always thought that this was some kind of lie or stereotype because they are different from the rest of the 7K .

But I've seen people say that there is only one kind of people that smell and they are the northman not the dornish . I thought that both this and the stereotypes about dornishman were due to their differences from the rest of the people . But some people take it literally.

What's your opinion on this?

Context

It's a very old and habitual thing for people to claim a certain "foreign" group of people "smell funny" or "bad" bc it's a complaint of the proximity to said foreign peoples. You know, if you're close enough to smell, you'd be confronted with how "rank" they innately are and should be somewhere else from you/yours. This is an example of how xenophobia and racism can overlap, bc racists will also/have also claimed non white people smell weird or their food smells weird and "gross" when it's simply different and/or stronger bc they actually season it with different things...or just season. Or whatever. Same idea, proximity and being in the presence of "weird" things, which in racism is then used to justify there being inherent differences b/t the groups that makes the non-smelly one innately superior and the only one capable of not being smelly/having "good" food within an burgeoning or existing racial system. Xenophobia gives easy rise to racism; racism affirms xenophobia. A cycle.

Answer

The "smelly" Dornish thing is stereotyping; the "Northners are actually smelly one" is anti-stereotyping and flipping the narrative. even though both groups are subject to xenophobia in-world, even to different degrees.

I actually have never heard people in the fandom say the northerners smell. And I don't remember any in-world character of any of the books claim such or hear another say so. Northmen are usually referred to as "savages" by some Andal-descents, esp septons (Eustace). So I'd have to see an example of that.

But it sounds like people are trying to defend the Dornish--or rather come back at the clear racism and xenophobia some fans have against the Dornish (I say racism bc the Dornish are PoC in many fans' eyes, esp from the show and so they treat them as such and base their theories and assessments of the world based on that). and doing so by doing what people often do in real life when white people--of any and all countries--try to make xenophobic and racists remarks about PoCs and Black peoples or just people from other countries: point out the hypocrisy by bringing up facts abt how they do not escape the facts of their own criticisms. Or just emphasize something else that show how they shouldn't be the authority to judge bc they are the bad actor that perpetuate/cause/set up the conditions being criticized (if the criticism is pointing out a fact but in bad faith to then lead up to imply that the PoCs and Black people cause such things themselves to themselves or that they innately show their inferiority by doing such things that the criticizer removes context of for such a claim of superiority).

Like English people vs Americans with traveling; Brits claim Americans don't travel and are uncultured bc of it, therefore are also dumb, but ironically, their island is not even the size of Texas and people travel 5 European countries worth sometimes to just see family, important landmarks, and end up also exploring indigenous tribes (hopefully respectfully). And because there are frankly thousands of different ethnicities and cultures and indigenous nations across this country that have influenced and grander "American" culture, the U.S. is already very "cultured" even if citizens stay within the country--Americans actually travel more going to work than Europeans tend to for their work. It doesn't make them/us necessarily superior, but that's how many Europeans on the Internet and some of real life like to think bc that's what they are looking for--innate human "superiority" AND an unchallenged justification of such so that they can continue their racism, some whites-first agenda, bc that's what it is. Then there's the whole business of rising far right groups in Europe reflecting how such has happened in the States but Europeans refusing to acknowledge how these are fascists they themselves enabled to be in power. And then there is when I talked about Israel and Eurovision, although that could have also been an Israeli 🙄. So it's most likely this.

Now, for them to use the northerners as the element of "white-people-saying-shit-to-be-superior", we need to know what facts could give the idea that northerners "smell" in the first place (bc it is a fact that many white people don't wash their legs and they had comparatively bad systems of hygiene and sewage compared to what we see as PoC civilizations AFTER the Romans at least). The northerners, I think, would be more inside often bc of the weather and have less access to water unless you are a Stark. Or at least this is what I think Andal people would think, too. So the other possibility is that people have headcanoned that the Northerners actually do stink in comparison to Andal descents but that this stink is made a part of their very being instead of being conditional. Again, removal of context, but as a way to show how the "other side" removes the context and push it in their face.

Because unlike the Dornish, the northerners more often practice male primogeniture AND are universally pale. Even as they worship the Old gods and practice much more subsistence-based practices form both the environment and those old god-based traditions they adopted form the twstsote/children of the forest.

They are, in a word, as less diverse than Dornish people and relatively have similar cultural practices amongst themselves as the Andals do themselves due to the isolation the Neck affords them. So they have less phenotically different features than the Andal people that we'd call "white" features (a range of very diff eye colors & "straight" features). The deal with Ned, his father, brother, and Lyanna plus the Strks of the main series? This is an anomaly in Westerosi history, where the Starks are more active than they've really ever been in "southron" politics. And the Starks are the second most fav house in the fandom.

Taking all this into account, the xenophobia towards the Northerners isn't quite as prominent in Westeros and in the fandom itself since people watched GoT and read the main series. People have misunderstood the Starks place in the politics and society of Westeros b/c the Starks are such a (usually positive) presence in the story that we had & which existed before AWoIaF, the Dunk and Egg series, Rogue Prince, TP&TQ, and F&B.

So it is useful AND truthful to re-foreignize them by pointing out how they have been "foreign" to the "majority" Andal-nonDornish descendants for thousands of years to throw off annoying/racist Stark stans. This is totally different "work" than when people (inworld or in the fandom) claim the Dornish "smell". They are not the same acts. Because Dornish people, rather than northerners, will face more bigoted readings from fans than northerners will.

[chic-beyond-the-wall]

What Val the Wildling Princess would wear

October 25th

(Gareth Pugh)

[15-lizards]

If A Song of Ice and Fire was written by a teenage girl you can bet your sweet ass there would be entire chapters dedicated to regional westerosi/essosi fashions and how they were influenced…god we could have had it all why does Mr Martin have to be an old guy who likes writing (inaccurate) battles more than historical clothing and hairstyles 💔

[kuramirocket]

I couldn't reblog all these separate posts, but these are just too good to not have them on my blog.

As I have always said, the Targaryens are NOT colonizers. The Targaryens are conquerors yes, but they did not colonize nor did they commit genocide. And this comes from me an indigenous woc whose people and country have suffered and continue to suffer from actual real life genocide and colonialism; not to mention that we, us, personally have generational trauma and history with actual colonialism and genocide still to this day. We know well what genocide and colonialism is and its negative impacts and consequences because we come from a people that suffered and still suffer from the actions of colonizers and those who commited genocide against us and our people.

But going back to House Targaryen, the Targaryens also never forced their bloodline onto the people they conquered in order to gain dominance of the conquered people. On the contrary, they bolstered marriages between the different kingdoms and their own house to stop the squabbling that had been occurring between the different kingdoms before the conquest.

The Targaryens also never beat, tortured and killed the people they conquered for continuing to practice their culture rather than adopting Valyrian customs. The Targaryens, most notably Dany, actually adapted to the culture of the Seven Kingdoms and the people they have interacted with. If anything, Westeros were the intolerant ones concerning the Targaryens practices - most notably incestious marriages. As a whole, the Targaryens respected and let the Kingdoms continue mostly as they were with their own beliefs and culture.

The Targaryens didn't plunder resources or money from the conquered people and land to make themselves, Valyrian descendants, more powerful and wealthy to have dominion and subjugate the conquered people. The Targaryens also didn't conquer in the name of their Valyrian ancestry or on the name of Old Valyria. They didn't conquer to further extend their own Valyrian power or threshold or create a New Valyria. The conquered people still held their culture, titles and lands.

The Targaryens also never targeted the Westori for simply being Westori or belonging to a specific group of people or religion. The Targaryens didn't kill in mass specific people such as Northerners or the Dornish people. So, they didn't commit genocide either.

Honestly, it's not that hard to understand the difference between conquest, colonialism and genocide if antis actually paid attention to and actually cared about what poc had to say about genocide and colonialism considering we have a long history with real life genocide and colonialism to this day.

[princessnysar]

Bastard Surname Meta:

It was only when the Andals who brought along the cultural attitudes of treating bastards as sins things in Westeros started to change. In parts where First Men and Andal blood the custom that of the First men came to blend into Andal cultural, giving surnames connected to nature. In their original homeland, there was a traditional surname, one name which was lost to time. 

However, the first men of the North were never conquered and forced to abandon the traditions that used to be prevalent everywhere in Westeros. They fought back fiercely to keep the rights of their own culture as did the some of the stony Dornish houses in the red mountains such as Dayne’s and Blackmonts. 

Bastards in these places are viewed differently and treatment is less abuse in the Southern households, typically. There are cases where matters are different, but they are viewed with hostile disgust. Even further after thousands of years in house Stark, the legendary and fiercely loyal snow wolves have become a positive example for those all over Westeros who know the story.