#from arya

[partfae]

there’s something so special to me about the casual intimacy (both physical and emotional) of the stark family. robb carrying bran to his horse. bran holding robb’s hand to comfort him. jon ruffling arya’s hair and pushing her around and her laughing and pushing him right back. ned hugging sansa and arya in front of the entire king’s court. they’re always thinking about each other and missing each other. the kids cry and fight and play and are kids, and ned and catelyn are kind to one another, and it’s beautiful. it’s so warm, so human, in contrast with the coldness of other familial relationships in the book.

[polysucks]

Was talking to someone about how the show came out around the same time instagram was starting to blow up and I felt like doodling Arya Sansa and Margaery posing for an impromptu group pic. (We’re pretending jeyne fell down a well. It’s totally not bc I forgor to draw her) (she didn’t hear that she is at the bottom of a well)(she’s fine)

[missazurerose]

Comment or reblog with specific classes since there's way too many for one poll. Of course plenty of people level everything but for the lore of it, what do you consider the main one?

If you can't narrow it down to 1, how did you get to those 2+ classes? A reaper who discovered a love of song and became a bard? A botanist on a revenge quest after losing their family? A culinarian who couldn't find what they needed on the market and said fine I'll get it myself?

Optional prompts to think about: Did they grow up learning that class? Fresh in it in MSQ? What do they think of their guild, past or current? Are the class quests even part of your story? If their primary class is a newer one, do they feel bad about giving up their old primary?

[eggdrawsthings]

OC doodles His name is Branim'ir Warin, a wandering Arkanian Offshoot Mandalorian. He's like a father/guardian to Izar after saving the kid from Order 66.

[ladyofchroyane]

something that’s always struck me as beautiful and painfully true is how asoiaf always emphasizes the importance of community in the face of oppression from the very beginning. only with his friends could jon stand up to alliser thorne and protect sam. only with her handmaidens and khas could dany stand up to viserys without fear of further violence. and of course, it’s the pack that survives the winter, not the lone wolf.

an important part of the starks’ characterization is that they are a pack split from the beginning—they left their home and slowly became overwhelmed as the pack fractured further. they are defined by their absence from each other. but both jon and dany’s narratives center the importance of found family, bypassing inherited ties. circumstances placed them in situations where they realized the vital need for community and became builders of it. it’s really special to me that both of them created their own spaces to exist in light of everything. misfits or “barbarians” to others, their found families are theirs, and it gave them not just power, but also the belonging they craved.

this frames jon and dany as creators whose narratives center the worlds they build. it’s so important to me that both characters later created even greater spaces for others to exist in their own right as they gained more power. they constantly reaffirm their people’s personhood against those who’d wish to deny them the right to exist.

it’s also true that both jon and dany had packs before, but that doesn’t mean their packs were right for them. jon no longer had a place at winterfell and viserys was a danger to dany’s wellbeing. eventually, dany was forced into choosing the blood of her blood—her found family—over the blood of the dragon, and jon chose the brotherhood he formed over his true brothers and sisters due to circumstances as well. it’s not that they hated their former packs—far from it, as they love their family—but those situations were not what was best for them. however, i do think it’s paramount that they both reaffirm their old identities, arya stark’s brother for jon and blood of the dragon for dany, in response to hardship in adwd. i see this as a reminder that your identity must encompass all facets of yourself. when you try to ignore who you are—especially by becoming someone you’re not, like the harpy for dany and lord snow for jon—you hurt not only yourself, but the community you’re trying to build.

[chippedcupwrites]

sansa/arya/dany, your stans could never make me hate the other two of you 💞✨

[amber-laughs]

“Bring her home, Mance” but away from Winterfell, because the Starklings are each other’s home not some castle

[nedseii]

could i get some sansa and jon?

Here you go Anon!

[wickedviago]

i never did share these, did i?

[ladystoneshart]

The Stranger and gender-nonconformity in ASOIAF

I might elaborate on this on a later post but I find it interesting that The Stranger, this genderless figure that is generally feared by the followers of the Seven and sometimes outright omitted from their rituals and traditions (e.g. when sam sings about the seven to gilly and the baby in affc or asos I don't remember which), is frequently associated (by the text itself!) to characters who fail to abide to societal expectations of gender performance.

arya is the most obvious case of course, with the whole house of black and white arc and general valar morghulis shenanigans, but also tyrion (who thinks of The Stranger as his patron and is seen by his peers as not being a Real Man™️because of his disability) and to a lesser extent cersei (jaime makes this association in affc. also her whole prophecy thing is very Stranger coded imo). you could even make a case for brienne and jaime (I'm writing a whole Thing about jaime's gender failings so that's why I'm including him here but don't worry about it) if you choose to read Lady Stoneheart as a representation of The Stranger, her being this agent of death who is also sometimes reffered to as The Silent Sister (cat also has this moment in I believe acok where she talks about the silent sisters and how she envies their ability to connect with the dead but I digress). fuck you could even make a case for sam and his connection to the white walkers plotline!

The Faith of the Seven is such a gendered institution I think it's pretty amazing that george included this genderless entity that is both feared and misunderstood by most followers of said religion and seen as an outsider then proceded to associate it (them? what pronouns does The Stranger use in the original text?) with characters who are ostracized by westerosi society for falling somewhere outside traditional gender expectations.

which could mean nothing

[dangoarts]

if i had a nickel for every time i fixated on someone that's all black with white accents

[renatapatata]

reading anything that steve blackman has to say regarding five and lila’s plotlines in season four like

[rriverrunning]

obsessed w the way sansa and arya's storylines contrast in acok. sansa is trapped in the red keep, constantly watched and surveilled by guards every hour of the day, and it drives her crazy; simultaneously, arya is alone, unsupervised, uncared for by anyone who could meaningfully help her, and forced to fend for herself. while sansa is suffocated by a lack of freedom, arya suffers from an excess of it. they're two trains going in opposite directions on parallel tracks.

[fromtheseventhhell]

I love how people are only ever interested in defending Arya's right to be weird-looking. It's never defending her intelligence from people who claim she's incapable of thinking for herself, highlighting her importance to the plot and refusing to see her as just a prop, acknowledging how much of her story gets stolen and given to other characters, talking about her trauma or how often it gets erased and overlooked, seeing her as more than just an attack dog/bodyguard, etc. Nope. It's just a "why can't people let Arya be ugly/unconventional looking? :(" post every other week because people are, for whatever reason, obsessed with how Arya is visually perceived. One of the most misinterpreted characters yet the issue is only ever with her being portrayed as "too pretty" or the wrong "type" of pretty. This fandom will entirely rewrite a character's motivations, values, and role in the story to the point that they consider references to canon "hate" but! The true injustice to canon is we acknowledge that she is described as pretty several times. Arya simply existing as her pretty, important, and non-conforming self is too complex and confusing for people to comprehend 😔.

[northern-embrace]

Jon gives Arya a sword and then there’s this cute bonding moment where they’re like, “Don’t tell Sansa” implying she will tattletale.

Jon gives a very brash 9 year old girl, an actual lethal weapon.

Then, Arya actually kills someone with it by accident.

Yes, she moved without meaning to but like tell that to the stableboy, he’s still dead.

Yes, she was escaping Lannister capture, but the fact that GRRM doesn’t just make her slip away… even if he showed the stakes are raised that even the smallfolk will turn over the Starks— he still deliberately makes Arya kill someone.

It’s just astonishing to me the difference in reaction to the girls’ actions. That Arya’s actions are glossed over— actual my-physical-hand-stabbed-this-person murder—meanwhile Sansa gets blamed for killing Ned when she had no way of knowing what Cersei would do with the information she accidentally delivers.

Edit:

Im not condemning both girls or saying they were wrong in their actions because the events of the first book are a tragedy— as in the Stark girls get got caught up in Lannister and Littlefinger’s schemes. My point (well, my bad actually my previous post did not convey this very well) was they were put in tragic situations, just Sansa gets more blamed for things she didn’t do (out of innocent motivations going to Cersei) versus what say, Arya actually did (not out of malicious intent but survival instinct). I’m saying that compared to what a lot of characters have done, somehow Sansa’s actions seem to always be more of a transgression than others.

Lmao, the reblog from an Arya fan kinda confirmed my point, like oh i’m blaming Arya too. -.- im not—- yes she panicked.

And while I’m not comparing the sisters to say one is better (fans got their faves)— I’m comparing the general reaction to the sisters, it’s not intended to heap hate on a particular sister but ugh why must this be the take away?!?! A reblog got from this took away from this post that it confirms their bias that Arya is seen as her sister’s servant (🙄 omg).

Lol im also heavily implying Jon wasn’t exactly right to give a weapon to a child but oh no I come off as an Arya hater. 😓 yes of course Needle is important to storyline blah blah but that doesn’t mean at the time, it wasn’t advisable to—I repeat— give a child live steel without knowing how she would use it.

[atopvisenyashill]

I was twelve when my father died And he was holding me I couldn't seem to die