#dany discourse

[kataraavatara]

now they want me to feel bad for clythia the notorious slave owner waaa waaa jurian led her on he tortured her ok whatever he should have done it more actually

[atopvisenyashill]

"It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl." No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words. "Fire and Blood," Daenerys told the swaying grass.

[thisonetimeinmeridian]

So I have a thought about that prophecy that HotD is using to justify the Targaryen invasion of Westeros. Obviously, this isn't entirely their fault since George R.R. Martin is the one who came up with it and has said a similar thing in different interviews . Yes, the books make Rhaenerya more vengeful and thirsty for blood, but it also does not make the Greens sympathetic at all and views them as one dimensional villians. George also had the Starks and the Blackwoods side with the Blacks, so I think it's clear which side we were "supposed" to root for, if any, but I digress. Anyway, into my theory.

Time and time again, we hear that Targaryens are the closest thing to gods because they have superior blood that "controls" the dragons. That they are dragons. We hear this within the books, within HotD, even in Game of Thrones. But really, they are no better than anyone else, GOT even had Dany say this outright in the last season when she says that without their dragons, they weren't great at all. Your argument might be well they could control them thats what they mean." But really, no, they couldn't. I'm not even just talking about when Aemond accidentally killed Luke. In one of the earlier seasons, Dany's dragon literally burned a child alive, and she didn't even know until much later. Does that sound like control to you? Neither Luke nor Aemond had control in that fight. Their animals, their instincts, took over despite what their riders wanted. You could say that "oh well, Aemond is only HALF Targaryen, that's why we need to keep the blood pure with superior Targaryen blood," in which case, refer to my earlier point about Dany.

Unlike some people, I like this change of Luke's death being an accident. It shows that the Targaryen's aren't gods, or infallible after all. As I said, Game of Thrones even shows this to us.

So that's why I think they are going in a similar direction with the whole "prophecy" BS. We hear multiple times within the original series that prophecies are never direct and often misinterpreted. This is made even clearer when Melisandre misinterprets the "Prince Who Was Promised" multiple times. This, combined with the fact that GRRM is heavily involved with HotD, and the fact that they've already shown that Targaryen's aren't immune or gods after, leads me to believe they are going in a similar direction as the idea that they can "control" the dragons. See my previous point.

It could likely be a criticism of the Targaryen hubris, and the fact that they think they have "superior" or "pure" blood makes them better than everyone else. Or that they are justified on starting multiple wars that lead to immeasurable amounts of death and destruction. As Ser Barristan said about the Mad King, "the mad king gave his enemies what he thought they deserved, and each time it made him feel more powerful and right."

Targaryen's are their own worst enemy, and they will tear each other apart over "who deserves it more" or "who has the purest blood" and is "more Targaryen." The prophecy is just an excuse to hold up their own superiority and god complex, despite the fact that no one wanted them to rule in the first place. Even George R.R. Martin says that holding the realm together with dragons is ficle and bound to break.

[daeneryscel]

quick how shocking is it that an alicent stan is claiming that DAENERYS of all people isn’t an ‘actual mother’ and that her only children are her ‘fur babies’ and how DARE she be included in a mother’s day post?

she’s the mother of dragons (they were extinct for over a hundred years, she dreams of her hatching them by walking into a great fire, literally breastfeeds them as if they were her own), she’s ‘mhysa’ to the freedmen AND missandei, she became pregnant at 13 after being routinely raped for months and gave birth to a stillborn son. a baby she wanted so desperately, and it’s disingenuous and nasty af to reduce the bonds she’s procured with her dragons, the people she’s freed from their shackles, and her actual dead child(ren, maybe, bc she might have had a miscarriage at the end of adwd) to ‘can’t stand a fur baby bitch’ i am in your fucking walls.

i forget though, the only women deserving of sympathy in universe need to be given made up rape and abuse storylines in order for their suffering to count. not the THIRTEEN YEAR OLD who was sold into slavery, married off against her will to a 30 year old warlord, raped repeatedly to the point she wanted to die; along with being sexually exploited and physically abused by her brother, the only living family member she had left. they also need to be a white red headed woman who’s either an abusive piece of shit or a massive ungrateful xenophobe. i hope you have that same energy when a real life person loses their baby, make sure to tell them that because their kid is dead they can’t call themselves a parent anymore.

[daenerystargaryen06]

Can antis like, keep away from Daenerys please?

I'm so tired of seeing people writing out crap that Daenerys will be the villain, Jon is better, she is mad, calling her Danielle, yada yada. Just say you don't like her (because she is ultimately better than your fave) and go.

I'm also tired of seeing people giving the Starks (especially Sansa) her traits. I've seen edits of people making Sansa a Targ, people talking about how she'll get Daenerys' dragons, that Jon will kill Dany for her, etc.

Just keep Daenerys' name out of your mouth if you hate her and can't stand that she is strong, independent, and has an amazing character arc. A majority of Daenerys fans don't like other asoiaf characters, but you hardly see any of them going on a tangent about how much they hate that character. Usually it's us Dany fans defending anti hate against Dany and also defending antis hate on Dany to prop up their own fave (mainly Sansa).

I heavily have a high disdain for show!Sansa (she's alright in the books, not my fave but she's much better compared to the garbage that is her show character). But I don't go out of my way to hate on her, diss her character, write pointless metas about her going "mad", "evil", or "dark". Nor do I see any other Dany fan doing so. We don't hate on Sansa to prop up Dany. We don't give Dany character traits of other characters/Sansa. We don't speculate about how she'll die or get killed or manipulated by another man. It's disgusting.

It's also disgusting seeing anti hate towards Arya. Arya is my second favorite female character in asoiaf. She isn't ugly, she isn't crazy or some violent murderer, she isn't going to be permanently warged into Nymeria and become Sansa's; nor is she going to become Sansa's assigned assassin to kill all her enemies while Sansa and Jon live in lala land. It's not going to happen.

It is so disgusting how a vast majority of Arya and Dany fans don't do half the things their antis/Sansa stans do, yet they go out of their way to bash these wonderful characters to prop up their own fave or to get them out of the way for Sansa or Jon (mainly Jon fans who bash Daenerys to prop Jon up and cheer Jon for killing her).

We can talk about our faves without bashing another character, making metas about them that don't even follow the text, and just being outright nasty.

Do better. Just keep away from Daenerys and Arya.

[rise-my-angel]

"Targaryeans can be hurt by fire, Dany is the exception." Like okay no, Dany didn't get burned that one time because she was successfully engaging in a very serious blood magic ritual. Dany is not special just because she thinks she is the centre peice of magical prophecies giving her a divine right, in a story that explicitly tells us that monarchs who think they have a divine right to rule, are delusional, extremely dangerous, and not to be trusted in positions of power. If I shoved Dany into a volcano, I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me she's walking that off.

[blackcat419]

Friendly reminder that Mirri was unjustly killed by her enslaver and was right about Dany.

If you disagree save your breath for someone who gives a shit

[batsplat]

I know need to know what the fuck was the honda three rider team about. Bc that sounds made up as fuck

historical silly season: 2010 edition!

in early 2010, casey had very much had enough of ducati

rumours are that he'd already been looking to break his contract for the 2010 season after how ducati had handled the whole mystery illness 2009 saga... releasing inaccurate statements about his condition to the press without his consent, implying his diet was to blame - as well as offering jorge a shit ton of money to come ride for them. crucially more than they were paying casey

this was from mid 2009 and the vibes were already BAD back then... it's hard to know how seriously to take retirement rumours from the time given casey just wasn't. really... talking to the press, so a lot of the times the media was relying on other sources from inside his camp or just wildly speculating

anyway, casey did see out the 2010 season with ducati, but at the start of the year he essentially gave them an ultimatum - he wanted them to rip up his proposed contract and have them show him how much he was worth to them. they did not do so

according to casey, he already signed a contract at the second round of the season in jerez, which gives you a sense of how done he was with all things ducati - but it was only announced after the seventh round in july. the move was made smoother by casey's existing close relationship with livio suppo, who had himself recently made the switch from ducati to honda

very much the right time to make the move for sure. at the time, there was speculation that casey's poor results in the first half of the season was due to decreased motivation, which of course he strongly denied. really, it was the fault of the bike and team - and casey would show as much the following year at honda

one little problem. honda already had two factory contracted riders for 2011: dani and dovi. now, dani had been honda's wunderkind since forever, and after their last world champ nicky hayden - who was not on particularly warm terms with dani's camp, it has to be said - departed the team, dovi had been the chosen replacement. dovi was a long time honda loyalist, even when he was riding their underpowered bikes to championship runner up positions against jorge in 250cc, and he'd also had a highly impressive rookie season

2009 had not been a particularly great year for either factory honda rider, partly due to bike performance partly due to injuries partly due to... rider performance. it was a rough year for dovi in particular, despite his win in tricky conditions at donington (all four aliens deliver quite funny performances at that race in different ways. not exactly the finest of hours for any of them)

when casey's signing was announced, honda initially went 'okay three factory blokes but maybe we'll have two in the real team and then one in a fake team'

the problem, right, is that it costs a lot of money to field a three man team - this is why honda was so keen on the red bull option, because then they could pay for the seat

honda confirmed its intention to have four factory honda riders in 2011, those three and sic, in mid-september. but they still needed to figure out where to put them. they didn't manage to get the funds to put casey in a separate team, and then they tried to put dovi on the satellite squad:

now, dovi was on a 2+1 contract, with 2009-10 guaranteed and an option to extend for another year. the contract included a performance clause - and dovi was having a more successful 2010 season, so hrc was having some trouble forcing dovi to accept the move:

so yeah, obviously not exactly great behaviour to sign a third rider when your team is already essentially full... and then immediately spend the next few months trying to get rid of one of your existing riders who is still entitled to that seat

some more details:

for a while, dovi looked like he might be leaning towards accepting it, and was certainly keen to stress that he wasn't rejecting gresini due to his interpersonal issues with some of the team's personnel. this from september:

eventually, repsol agreed to fund the whole thing so that honda could honour their commitments to all three riders:

so, one team for all of them, if still a wee bit of healthy internal separation

and by november the whole thing was sorted

honda did have some internal precedent for this! in 1997, they fielded three factory riders: doohan, criville and okada

also back in the day they did just create shell teams organised around one rider, which is of course where valentino spent his first two years in the premier class

and here's the updated version from 2011!

anyway, it was only something honda was willing to do for one year, and in the end dovi decided to jump ship to yamaha rather than accept internal demotion. the fight for p3 in the championship went right down to the final race in valencia - and it must have been incredibly satisfying for dovi to snatch it from dani there

after this... look, basically they changed the rules to make it two entries at most per team, then they changed it back for like? two years? so that four riders were technically allowed. and then they changed their mind again. now it's just two - obviously teams are allowed wildcards, but they couldn't do this three man team thing anymore nowadays

teams generally wouldn't even want to do this because it's a lot of hassle and, most importantly, money. so yeah, unlikely to make a comeback. very much a quirky curio that won't be replicated... could be funny though. if they want to change the rules again

[knightofthelemontree]

Arya/Brienne Analysis here.

[snake-berry]

ok guys im doing a series where im going to draw some asoiaf ladies as disney princesses. starting w sansa bc she is a disney princess who was dropped into the wrong world

[atopvisenyashill]

since falling into my hotd brainrot ive been reminded of one of my gripes which is this misunderstanding that daenerys lived in "abject poverty" (to use the language from an ask you got not that long ago) before her introduction and this is just... not true?

That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever."

people living in abject poverty don't have access to servants or their own rooms. does this mean their time here would equal the upbringing viserys and daenerys would have had in the red keep? absolutely not. for one thing, daenerys wasn't tutored by a maester or septa which is pretty standard for most noble children of a similar standing, let alone a princess.

They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in any one place. Her brother would not allow it. The Usurper's hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one.

they would have needed coin for those ships.

At first the magisters and archons and merchant princes were pleased to welcome the last Targaryens to their homes and tables, but as the years passed and the Usurper continued to sit upon the Iron Throne, doors closed and their lives grew meaner. Years past they had been forced to sell their last few treasures, and now even the coin they had gotten from Mother's crown had gone. 

what happened with ser willem was absolutely terrible but this idea that daenerys and viserys were living on the streets is inaccurate when their targaryen name is what allowed them to live with the likes of magisters and merchant princes. nor was this something that happened overnight, as indicated by the "years past". they also had "treasures" (meaning jewels) which again no person living in abject poverty would have. those treasures were a lifeline for them but it was a lifeline that a character like nettles never has.

Her brother Viserys had once feasted the captains of the Golden Company, in hopes they might take up his cause. They ate his food and heard his pleas and laughed at him. Dany had only been a little girl, but she remembered. "I have sellswords too."

people living in abject poverty don't feast captains.

it just irks me because when you compare it to the details of nettles' life, it feels wrong to me to believe that both these girls lived in abject poverty. that was nettles. that being said though, that doesn't mean daenerys had an easy time living in exile with viserys. he was a monster to her and she deserves sympathy for that. but while daenerys and nettles' upbringings were similarly tragic (orphaned etc), they were still worlds apart in their differing levels of privilege. it also irks me when they try to use this to compare daenerys to sansa (funny how its often just sansa and not the other starks)

yeah those are all definitely good points. as you say, I don't want to discount that Daenerys had an incredibly stressful childhood (to say the least), much more stressful than The Average Noble by far because she and viserys were actively thinking about and worrying over where their next meal will come from, how to keep a roof over their heads, and they aren't learning jack shit because they don't have a maester, a guardian, a parent, or a single person in all of Essos looking out for them. but it's also like. first of all, we have two canon characters that actually do experience real poverty, the first being davos though he doesn't experience it on page and the second being arya - she's actively avoiding capitalizing on the stark name so she's actually living the life someone who is born poor would live.

and one thing about dany's life - which i've touched on before re: noble girls getting sold in marriages in what a previous anon referred to as slavery - but her last name and the class she was born into if not the class she lived in cannot be disentangled from the life she lived. i pointed it out there that for example, if poor jeyne poole found some dragon eggs in the crypts, used ramsay's dead body to hatch them, and started burning shit down, she's just not amassing the sort of following dany would because she doesn't have the name. and you can see that directly with Nettles, as you point out - despite everyone seeing clearly that Nettles manages to claim Sheepstealer, has a strong bond with her dragon, because she's lowborn and Not White (and not even an acceptable Not White, like dornish, but some ~random brown girl~ from nowhere with no claim to any specific heritage in canon) she's still seen as a temptress, a whore, a witch, all because she claimed a dragon and had some old married dude following her around. dany and viserys regularly trade away their jewels, hype up their titles and heritage, in an attempt to gain basic necessities and this is certainly a marked difference from the way other nobles have lived and important but arya, gendry, hot pie, lommy - they don't get that. lommy just gets killed. and he's not even running his mouth the way viserys is in vaes dothrak. he's just a dumb kid whose leg is broken and asks to be carried and he's murdered for it. hot pie is a normal ass kid who has to learn how to defend himself because it's literally life or death while dany regularly has some sort of guard protecting her.

and again - it's not to say dany doesn't experience a lot of trauma and instability that other nobles will never face that gives her an understanding of violence and war that others don't have. but just like you can't say she was truly "sold" as a slave to drogo because her class is tied to the concept of these nobly born child brides, it's not exactly true that she lives in abject poverty either. it's something a lot more complex than that.

[randomnameless]

Everytime I see your Pat lolcalization posts, I can't help but think if this is him overcompensating for voicing the character of n*zi germany in the first seasons of the hetalia anime.

I can't say and I'd rather not say anything about Pat's intent or own agenda or whatever -

But the interesting "lolcalisation changes" and direction give to VAs really seem to favour a certain reading of the events happening in FE16 and to this day, I still can't understand how that managed to be released without getting at least some flak.

Sure Fates' lolcalisation is a tough nut to beat and nothing comes quite close to what happened to Fates to FE16/Nopes, and yet I wish I am joking when I say nearly 80% of the lines involving Supreme Leader and/or Rhea/the CoS should be double checked, because "Dany expy bringing a revolution" has to fit in the story that is FE16, and that's talking about the washed down version of Dany some people have and not the one who uses violence for the greater good, until she starts to realise that the "greater good" is as solid as smoke and runs away from the - well-intentioned ! - mess she created.

Again, I don't think anything was malicious with the lolcalisation Fodlan got, is it just a case of misunderstanding the game and slapping archetypes and "trendy notions" to make this "strange" game sell like hotcakes in your home market?

Or is it another case of "think of the children Susan" where Susan sure as hell can't endorse a character presented as the heroine sprout disgusting things and advocate for imperialism 101 so the heroine is now rewritten?

Or is it the lolcalisation team - after looking at the jp script - try to make the general idea of "you must feel bad for this character" somehow work, because they thought no one would seriously want to walk with her and feel any sort of sad uwus for the "you have pointy ears, you cannot rule over humans" red emperor? So they modified the script and directed the VA accordingly ?

IDK, but I think if you've been long enough on this blog you know my stance on localisation and lolcalisation but this discrepency between the two versions (or at least two audios) really took me by surprise when the game was released in 2019 lol

[leulah]

Gender Roles in the ASOIAF Fandom

There is a lot of discourse going around about female roles and femininity in ASOIAF and how certain characters are less than for fitting into traditional ideas about gender roles in the series. And while there are so many things fucked about this discussion of "who is the better victim of misogyny", I also think a lot of people are missing the point entirely.

I see a lot of accounts saying that it is backwards or "tradwife" to defend certain female characters because they quote "uphold the patriarchy", and defending them is regressive because it is what is viewed as the expectation and standard in the real world for real women- which is true it is the expectation. But it is a very black and white view on a very complex problem to just write off all "soft female" characters as misogynistic because they fit into this real world standard. This discussion runs a lot deeper than "feminine good/masculine bad", because at the end of the day female roles are still viewed as being lower than male roles in society. In the eyes of the patriarchy being masculine is always better because it's about power and control, and in order to have this power women and femininity have to be viewed as beneath them. You can see this when men get emasculated because their partner makes more money than them, or they make fun of girly things- these gender roles are less about "promoting femininity" than it is about promoting a power dynamic.

That is why are characters who are more masculine and don't fall into these expectations of gender roles like Dany or Arya, are generally viewed better in the larger fandom space than those that do. It is because being masculine is always viewed as being better than being feminine, and in a fictional world where these women in power pose no actual threat to real men's masculinity they are viewed as being stronger and better people. Being masculine makes these women more worthy of respect in the eyes of the fandom. This is also similar to how when discussing history people often say: "Look women were also warriors! They're important too," as if a woman's worth only comes from her proximity to masculinity, and the women who were just mothers and wives and weavers are unworthy of our admiration and respect. Even though it is true that real society promotes and expects women to fit into a traditional female role, being masculine is still viewed as superior to being feminine.

By contrast, female characters in ASOIAF like Catelyn and Sansa who do not fall into this warrior women archetype are often berated and hated by the fandom. On one side, because they are viewed as weak and by being traditionally feminine they are seen as "upholding the patriarchy" in Westeros- disregarding the fact they are victims of it as well. But on the other hand, a lot of the complaints about Cat and Sansa come from men who feel as though they threaten men's power in the series. A common complaint about Catelyn is that she undermined and questioned Robb's power- because how dare she have a say in what happens to her family. Sansa the eleven year old is often criticized for "betraying Ned" by going to Cersei and writing the letter, with people often saying its her fault for the war and not the various adults and men in power. If a male character like Jon or Ned questions or goes against those in power it is seen as necessary and strategic, but when a female character takes any action or autonomy in their own narrative, it is viewed as a threat.

And of course there is more nuance to this, because not everyone does like the characters who break out of gender expectations, and these women in power are still viewed as a threat when their story intertwines with men. Daenerys gets respect insofar as she is not a threat to other main male characters, but the second she stands in the way of Jon's supposed claim or being Azor Ahai, she is discarded by the fandom and must be sacrificed as "the Nissa Nissa for Jon's heroic storyline". These women in masculine roles are celebrated in the fandom space, but when they too begin to question male authority their support crumbles under the same misogyny the feminine characters face.

There are many reasons why someone would prefer the female characters that fight and break out of gender roles over ones that are more traditional, but if your reaction to femininity is one of weakness and worthlessness I think you need to do some self reflection on your relationship to women. Yes, the "let women be soft" argument is reductive due to irl expectations, but that doesn't make feminine women deserving of your hate and harassment. Fiction is not reality, and people don't have the same expectations and reactions between them, and trying to boil down a complex discussion on power dynamics and gender roles in the series to "feminine bad" is reductive and not at all the message. Both sets of women deserve respect and both suffer under the rules and traditions in their world, but you have to remember there is no "better victim". There is no winner under the patriarchy.

[daenystheedreamer]

ngl if any more hbo spin offs get released i might log off cos hearing more opinions and seeing more abominably mid content will judt make me even more misanthropic

[elizabethwydevilles]

You're not actually analysing Star Wars if the only thing you do is repeat what George Lucas says. You gotta at least look at how he conveys he's message.

[knightofthelemontree]

it's my birthday, will someone ask me a question I can rant about?