#But specifically their parallel with Hector and Astyanax

[the-dragon-hearted]

I can't help but wonder, Astyanax

Oh, my son, ne'er allowed to grow, Oh, my boy, sweetest joy I know, Days ago, I held you gently in my arms, Your time has flown, no...

Used to say I'd make the storm clouds cry for you, Used to say I'd capture wind and sky for you, Helm aside, I held you; would've died for you! Oh, you faced my foe...

I can only wonder, who you could've been Things you could've suffered, the fights you'll never win All I ever wanted, was a peaceful world and home Born in war and torment, but today you rest your soul

My son, you're not alone!

[arcadianambivalence]

Women of Game of Thrones + quotes from The Trojan Women by Euripides

(Click for captions)

(Read more for analysis)

Hecuba - Sansa, Catelyn

Cassandra - Cersei, Mirri

Andromache - Daenerys, Margaery

Pallas - Arya

Helen - Lyanna

Since this gifset is getting some attention, I thought I’d explain why I put these two together.  The play The Trojan Women was an argument against war, specifically the slaughter of civilians during the Peloponnesian War, which happened while the play was written and performed.  

Given ASOIAF’s anti-war stance and GOT’s inclusion of plotlines exploring the abuse of civilians, hostages, and prisoners of war, I thought the comparison fit.

I’m actually surprised there aren’t more comparisons of these two sources, to be honest.  There was basically a genre of stories devoted to spin-offs of the Trojan War myth, and what is ASOIAF if not a continuation of its Trojan War parallel in Robert’s Rebellion?

The plot is fairly simple: a group of Trojan women (including Spartan queen Helen) mourn their fates as they are about to be carried off to various Greek kingdoms as slaves after their city has fallen in the Trojan War.

Hecuba

Hecuba, wife of the murdered king Priam and mother of Paris, Hector, and Cassandra, rises as the most vocal of the female characters.  She tries to encourage the women to live, but she becomes hysterical by the end.  She hates the Greek men for their actions, but does not recognize that even the Trojan men are capable of the same behavior.  She pointedly blames Helen for the war and ignores Paris’s part in it.

In another play, Euripides would have Hecuba take revenge on her captors for their roles in the deaths of two of her children.  

I chose her quotes for Catelyn and Sansa because Catelyn has elements of Hecuba to her, such as being a widow who outlives most of her children and eventually takes some form of revenge.

Sansa has Hecuba’s bittersweet reflection on the past, though I associate her more with the quote than the character of Hecuba herself.

Helen

Helen, on the other hand, faces execution by her husband.  A demigoddess yet near-powerless outsider, she tries to bargain with Menelaus for her life while clearing her name.  She argues that Paris and Aphrodite led her from Sparta, that she was swept up in the choices of the gods and later the Trojans (much like the Trojan women are now to the Greeks).

Similarly, Lyanna was swept up in Rhaegar’s obsession with prophecy.  Regardless of whether she went willingly or not (and like with the myth of Helen, there’s plenty of speculation to go around), she spent the war in her homeland’s enemy territory.

Andromache

Andromache learns that she is going to be the slave of Achilles’ son and contemplates dying to avoid this.  To add to this agony, her son will be murdered by the Greeks so he cannot grow to avenge his father.

If the show ever included Elia, she would be the obvious choice for Andromache, the gentle wife and loving mother ripped from her children by the enemy.  Martin’s description of Aegon’s death (and the show’s depiction of the slaughter of the illegitimate Baratheon children) is a direct parallel to Euripides’s description of Astyanax’s murder.

As it is, I found two other characters in situations that resemble Andromache’s.  There is Margaery who, like Andromache, falls from power because of the machinations of others, then there is Daenerys, whose son was murdered to defeat prophecy…which brings me to the next character.

Cassandra

Cassandra, a prophet, expresses a suicidal desire for a vengeance she knows she will live (and die) to see committed against Agamemnon.

Mirri Maz Dhurr screams Cassandra figure.  From the attack on her temple to the unheeded warnings about her and from her, she is both victim and victor as, like Cassandra, lives to see the defeat of her captor, though she dies soon after.

Cersei, too, has the fire associations of Cassandra, though I think she’s also comparable to Hecuba and Helen.  As with the Sansa gif, I chose Cersei more for the quote than a direct comparison to the character herself.

Pallas

Finally, Pallas Athena, who originally supported the Greeks, turns against her champions after seeing their inhumane treatment of civilians after the war.  The play opens with Poseidon and Athena, once enemies, uniting to plot a bitter end to the Greek forces.

I chose Arya for this quote because of the Odysseus reference (“No One”), but also because Arya has elements of Pallas to her.  There’s her craft (of “needlework”) and craftiness, along with her journey of seeing the different sides of the War of 5 Kings and its aftermath in grey terms, which is what her scene with the Westerland soldiers is about in season 7.  Not to mention, Martin intentionally gave her grey eyes like “Grey-Eyed Athena” and a warging ability through Nymeria’s bright yellow eyes (similar to another translation, “Bright-Eyed Athena”).

Oh, and one of Athena’s epithets?  Areia.

[malachi-walker]

Ok I can answer this one. But it's about the fall of Troy. The specific lyrics that tell you this (translation here) is of course the line "the fortress tower of Troy/as it falleth, struck by lightning" but also the fact that the boy the "old king" is fighting against is named Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus was another name for Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles who helped lead the razing of Troy following the death of his father and was the one who both slew King Priam and threw Hector's infant son Astyanax off the wall of Troy. The song is depicting the final struggle between the elderly Priam and the wrathful teenager Neoptolemus, a fight in which Priam is very outmatched.

So you could draw some parallels there with how a song about the destruction of Troy under this inescapable fate is playing over what is undoubtedly Utena's single most emotionally devastating duel in the Black Rose arc. There's also something to be said about how Neoptolemus was essentially Achilles without any of his humanizing qualities, and unlike his father he wasn't blessed by the gods to have a brilliant but short-lived life. Instead, Neoptolemus made himself stand out by his sheer brutality, which is mirrored in Wakaba pulling zero punches in her fight in her quest to shine.

what does Magic Lantern Butterfly Moth 16th Century mean

it's a bop! :)