#a side character in her own book

[airysthinkingbox]

uu parrot fans try to have an original thought process for once challenge (impossible!!!!)

[starlingfawn]

through starless sky to blackest ground

[rosefires20]

My brainrot today is thinking about just how incredible for a character Eowyn is.

Genuinely. The series might not have many female characters but the ones we do get go so fucking hard.

To me, Eowyn is literally the definition of defining being a woman for oneself. She rejects the roles she is given despite acknlowdging the importance and its mostly because she knows part of the reason is that she is a woman.

The reason why she is obsessed with Aragorn isn't because she loves him but because she wants what he has. She wants the freedom and courage and bravery that Aragorn has at every turn. She literally has multiple conversations during the Two Towers about how what she fears most is a cage. All this girl wants is the freedom to be and not be forced into a role. The best thing is that she literally gets that.

The segment of Return of the King about Eowyn and Faramir is literally about her piecing together what she truly wants. She doesn't want Aragorn. She wants freedom and the ability to choose. Faramir does nothing but encourage that in her. Their love story is literally one of the healthiest love stories I've seen in a long time because at the heart of it, their love is a place to return home to for both parties. Both go off to lead and help their people for a considerable amount of time before returning to each other but that does not diminish their bond. Even Faramir, I believe, falls in love with her bravery and dedication to her loved ones. The reason she went to Pelenor Fields and Gondor with the troops of Rohan was because she had things she wanted to fight for. She wanted to fight for herself, her people, and her loved ones. She is the one who protects Theoden after he is killed so that his body gets the treatment it deserves. She encourages Merry and helps him go to the battle because she sees her struggle in Merry. They feel helpless standing around when there are things to be doing.

Let's also not forget the fact that she was around Grima Wormtounge just as much as the King was. She was exposed to the same poison and awful words that eroded the king. It's even implied that her care for him is part of the reason why Theoden was savable when Gandalf showed up. She had the same power and bravery as everyone else even if she didn't see it in herself.

Then at the end of the day, SHE decides where she wants to go and what path she wants to walk. She walked the path of a warrior. The path of a princess/ruler. The path of a caretaker. But in the end she decides which elements truly mean something to her outside of gender definitions. That is what makes her character so incredible to me. In this she literally kills one of the biggest enemies in that battle with such a badass line.

[basket-of-radiants]

In my Rhythm of War rewrite, Odium never switches his attention from Venli to Moash. As a downstream consequence of this, 100% of my complaints for both characters are resolved.

[beneathsilverstars]

i love themes. i love when i'm writing and i'm like ughhh i have to come up with some filler bullshit details to go here because it's necessary to the rest of the plot but not actually very relevant to it, and then i'm like wait. i know how to make it relevant. i just have to make the details echo the overarching themes of the piece. and suddenly it stops being filler bullshit and starts being, like, foreshadowing or allegory or some cool shit like that ^w^

[nami-moittli]

I think you like Leah

…A little

[asterdeer]

20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

!!!! def the mars house by natasha pulley! it did meet my expectations and in a lot of ways vaulted over them, because the pre-release reviews were...... rough. thankfully i found a lot of the reasons for the bad reviews (not all of the reasons, but a lot of them) to be nonissues for me. i really liked that way pulley played with gender, the pluses and minuses of living in a non-gendered world. the mammoths thing was kind of silly but in a cute way. and gale really is the most compelling love interest of the year to me. gale themarshouse call me if it doesn't work out with january.

[earl-of-221b]

The new Legend of the Condor Heroes is great fun. But it is Not for newcomers, I’m not even sure it’s a drama, they are going HAM with the pacing — absolutely speed running two generations of backstory, adoption, brotherhood, blinding, vendettas, poisonings, misunderstandings, master killing, revenge vows, invasion and wife snatching…400 miles per hour of story beats in like the first 5-10 mins — not even Guo Jin’s life in Mongolia was covered! They get to the mainland in 15 mins! Rong’er immediately lays her head on Guo Jin’s shoulder the second she revealed herself as a woman on the boat! This is the most bizarre pacing???!?! This is setting up zero relationships between key characters and not building up personal identity to be conflicted with upbringing v heritage so unable to juxtapose the protag’s loyalties between the Mongolian grasslands and Song China at a later juncture? There is simply no way for a normal person to follow the story at the rate of 30 characters being introduced within the first 30 mins? I am getting whiplash—

[booasaur]

Foundation (2021) - 2x05

[nyxofdemons]

four years for this show...

[archerons-arrow]

me, out here realizing people who hate Jude and Cardan are reading books set *checks notes* in the kingdom and courts they rule over and are angry at their inclusion in any story set in Elfhame and are comparing their fans to acotar: the fuck you say?

[themyscirah]

Okay friends a question for you all:

May be unfair of me to put Philippus here because she has like 200+ more appearances than the next most character so she'll probably sweep but I want her here so idc 🤷‍♀️

[fromtheseventhhell]

I don't want to imply only Arya antis think she'll go to the Riverlands first lol I'm pretty sure us Arya stans came up with the theory she'll reunite with Lady Stoneheart and give her the gift of mercy in the first place. Unfortunately though there are a lot of people whose speculation for Arya starts and ends at her killing people and disappearing off the face of the earth or realizing "revenge is bad" and then doing absolutely nothing afterwards. Though one thing I've seen very common with Arya antis is the idea that she'll effectually never reunite with any of her family members or identify as Arya going forward, either staying in the shadows or dying nameless or faceless without anyone recognizing her. That's a bit that worries me somewhat with her returning to the Riverlands first thing. Most Arya fans do expect her to be crowned by Lady Stoneheart and lead the BWB and Nymeria's pack up north but a lot of speculation from non-Arya fans ends up similar to Arya's reunion with Sansa and Bran in season 7; out of the loop, out of place, her journey treated as boring compared to the others, underwhelming reunions, conveniently out of the picture long enough so she can't ruin relationships that otherwise wouldn't happen with her present, secondary to Sansa.

One thing I think gets overlooked is how close Braavos is to Westeros. I've seen a lot of people act like Sansa in the Vale is a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Wall while treating Braavos like it's as far away as Meereen but they're actually about the same distance away. Braavos does appear to be perfectly placed if his original intent was for Arya to end up somewhere in the North, whether at the Wall, White Harbor, or even Hardhome.

But mostly I reject the idea that Arya will end up secondary to her brothers if she goes North. I have faith in GRRM loving Arya too much to ever treat her the way the show did in seasons 7 and 8. I think she has a role to play in the North considering how much of the Northern plots in ADWD are tied together with the "Arya"-Ramsay marriage and Jeyne. Stansas ASOIAF fans really believe that Jeyne will have absolutely no intersection with the person she's impersonating despite GRRM spelling it out that she's almost guaranteed to sail to Braavos for safety. It makes absolutely no sense to believe Jeyne would go to Braavos and never even encounter Arya. We also know GRRM intended for the Stark direwolves to go against Ramsay's hounds at some point in the future of which there's about nine named ones so far. Sounds like Ramsay will find out what wolves to do dogs ;) That may be enough to overwhelm Ghost or Shaggydog even if together but even a fraction of Nymeria's pack going north with her could handle them. I also refuse to believe Lady Stoneheart will die again before encountering a resurrected Jon. There's been rumors she and her men have been seen disappearing into the Neck which did lead to in book speculation the BWB has some contact with the Crannogmen. Arya can also be a bridge between Bran and Jon if GRRM keeps the estrangement between them.

And I really want Roose to find out he was in fact careless with a prize of great worth by not realizing he had the real Arya Stark under his nose in Harrenhal as his cupbearer lol. It'd be a shame if he died before finding out. But I do agree that she could go to either location and GRRM could make it work. I seem to remember jokes about GRRM being stuck because there are too many locations he wants her to be in lol.

I didn't think you were implying that, I just wanted to clarify that there were valid reasons for her heading to the riverlands and that I agree that some people only theorize that because they view the North as the most important location so they ignore her connections to it. I agree with a lot of your points and it's very frustrating that Arya's arc gets reduced so much because people refuse to see her as an important character. A majority of the theories surrounding her are the barest bones and people only expect her to leave the faceless men, kill [x] character, and then fuck off in a boat while her siblings (i.e. Sansa) carry the bulk of the Northern plot. The reality is that Arya's arc is difficult to predict because she has so many plot setups. There is an entire arc in Braavos waiting to play out, she has connections to the Northern plot, and she has plenty to do in the Riverlands. Arya is one of George's favorite characters and he's spent a lot of time developing her for a reason, so safe to say that whatever route he ends up taking it's going to be well-written and respectful to her character.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Crimson Crown

sapphic high fantasy

in a world where witchcraft is outlawed by the king, a young witch from a coven masquerading as a convent is struggling to come into her powers, and live up to her mother’s expectations after her older sister died

when she discovers a way she could possibly bring her sister back, and prove herself to her mother, she travels to the palace and quickly gets caught up in politics, along with the ex she hasn’t seen in years, who has her own agenda

snow white reimagining, villain origin story

[mosscrab]

mgsv has so many literary references to books i have essays abt it kind of makes me.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Feels relevant to this blog lol.

It's so important to be inquisitive and exploration when you're writing any genre, but fantasy and scifi are at the top. What is the point of writing either genre if you don't care to actually ask any questions about the world or worlds you are creating, and all the creatures and non human people present in it?

Mind you, I don't think it's necessary to go on days long deep dives into how blue dye is made, or even to craft whole conlangs or speculative evolution or any of that. Though I personally have been doing all of that for my own work.

You just need to put some effort into wondering what makes your written world different from reality? What is the same? Etc. If you're really keen on adding in elements that might seem too modern in a fantasy that's set in a vaguely historical time period, you just have to figure out a way to make those things cohere with the world you're writing!

Just make them make sense.

“Be curious about what you’re writing about” is not stock Common Writing Advice but it really, really should be. There are a lot of written works that fail due to the authors just being obviously incurious about what they are writing about.