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team dragonstone constructing divinity complexes heretofore unknown to theology. two people for whom different gods have tangibly protected from harm and/or given supernatural powers and both of them are like YES I have seen the face of the divine and that face is a bald middle aged middle manager accountant who is unpleasant to be around.

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Westeros needs to have a big masquerade ball where a Blackwood and a Bracken accidentally fall in love and see what happens

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Iron Islander voice: Theon you [19 syllable dolphin noise slur] I see you came back WOKE and GAY and a WOMAN from us leaving you as a child prisoner to the guy with an 8 foot sword that makes you drag it around to executions in front of his screaming faced tree gods as a daily reminder that he can and will kill you (a child) just like he killed the rest of your family (some of which were also children). Did you have fun polishing his sword? I’ll bet. Did you write this letter yourself? Knowing there’s a one person literacy limit? Should we call you Theon the Reader, you reading fuck? And standing here in a jean jacket you bought yourself, may as well be sucking dick at old navy. You know who’s NOT woke or gay or a woman? Your sister Asha. Why can’t you be less gay and woke and a woman, like Asha? I bet she could run a democratic election because you know what isn’t gay Theon? Democracy

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why would any man want to be king

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how it feels to say your favourite asoiaf book is clash

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SOIAF bannermen sketches II by Tribemun

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I was going through the notes I took the last time I reread Cersei’s chapters in A Feast for Crows, and this parallel between Cersei’s first and last chapter stood out to me as especially interesting:

She followed them back inside and watched as they bundled the girl up in her father’s bloody blankets. Shae, her name was Shae. - A Feast For Crows, Cersei I

"I had the Blue Bard delivered to the High Septon, as Your Grace commanded. He is here now, somewhere down below us. My whisperers tell me that they are whipping him, but so far he is still singing the same sweet song we taught him.” The same sweet song. Her wits were dull for want of sleep. Wat, his real name is Wat. - A Feast For Crows, Cersei X

These lines are easy to overlook, but I think they add a subtle touch of humanity to the character. Not in the sense that Cersei is weighed down by guilt over how she used and discarded these people — Shae, through false promises of wealth in exchange for her testimony against Tyrion; Wat, through the torture she ordered to extract a false confession against Margaery — but in the sense that, in those moments, she does register them as real individuals. Almost intrusively so — which is likely why George set those lines in italics.

The idea of naming as a form of recognition — of seeing someone beyond their reputation, outward image, or social role — is a recurring theme in the series, most notably in the dynamic between Jaime and Brienne. In that light, these passages with Cersei feel like part of the same thread: an acknowledgment of personhood.

Which, again, seems deliberate, as George also shows Cersei willfully denying said personhood to characters she vilifies — precisely through her refusal to speak their names, replacing them with something derogatory instead:

"Allow me a moment to dress. Ser Osmund, you shall accompany me to the Tower of the Hand. Ser Boros, roust the gaolers and make certain the dwarf is still in his cell." She would not say his name. - A Feast For Crows, Cersei I

"Your Grace has forgotten the Lady Sansa," said Pycelle. The queen bristled. "I most certainly have not forgotten that little she-wolf." She refused to say the girl's name. - A Feast For Crows, Cersei IV

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why you think starks are brown. No hate, I just want to know reason 💓

No hate taken!!! I'm more than happy to give a little context.

I also talked a little and at length and then some about why I think the Starks are ndn or indigenous coded, therefore anecdotally "brown" if you want some more!

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The Starks Are Indigenous and You Can’t Change My Mind

Look, I’m just gonna say it: the Starks are giving "we’ve been here for 10,000 years and you just got off the Mayflower.” Fandom loves to frame them as cold (literally), brooding white dudes who talk to trees and wolvves and die tragically—but if you zoom out just a bit, what you’ll see is a whole culture that’s basically been staring the apocalyptic Chekov’s gun in the face while mumbling “this is fine” for millennia.

Let’s start at the beginning: the First Men walked to Westeros on foot twelve thousand years ago (according to legend. it's giving oral storytelling), chopped some trees, made some mistakes, and then struck a sacred pact with the Children of the Forest. Instead of wiping the Children out like the colonizers down south (cough Andals cough), they basically said, “Yeah u right let’s chill,” and started building their whole culture around respecting nature, living weirwoods, and the gods that inhabit them. Now fast forward six thousand years and the Andals show up like, “Hey, we’ve got gods who look like us and wear robes, and also we’re here to murder your trees bc they're just trees they mean nothing.” (SOUND FAMILIAR?) And the North said: “uhhhhh doubt but alright try me bitch.” The Andals conquered everywhere else in Westeros, but the North? Untouched. Still praying to SpOokY tReEs, burying people under roots, giving a fuck about their ancestors, still naming their kids things like Brandon and Benjen and not, like, Luthor Tyrell III.

So when I say the Starks are Indigenous-coded, I mean it. They are the last major ruling house descended purely from the First Men, with customs, spirituality, and governance structures that date back over ten millennia. They didn’t import Andal feudalism or Southern chivalry—they rule by duty, community ties, and vibes. There’s no divine right here, just “I said I’d guard the North, so I’m gonna guard the North, even if I die horribly doing it.” Which... they usually do.

Physically, too, the Northerners are not your typical pale-and-pink Southron types. Descriptions from the books associate the First Men—and thus the Northmen—with brown hair, darker complexions, and gray eyes. They’re closer to earth tones than the golden-and-ivory palettes of the Reach and Crownlands.

Now, it’s all fun and games until Robb Stark starts stacking Lannister corpses like firewood and suddenly—boom—“savage skinchanger” propaganda. The second the North stops being cold and quiet and starts sending wolves downriver, the Southern rumor mill goes feral. The same lords who wear wolf pelts to look edgy start whispering, “Is he... using magic? Unnatural beasts? Isn’t that his direwolf out there eating men’s faces?”

We’re not even being subtle anymore. This is textbook colonizer panic: “Oh no, the brown people with strong spiritual ties to nature and weird customs have found a way to beat our superior steel and horses! They must be cheating!” And this is coming from a place where Melisandre literally births a shadow demon out of her woman's place and half the people involved just shrug and go, “Well, kings do be kinging and doin whatever it takes to be kinged.” But Robb winning battles with tactics and a big-ass dog? Witchcraft.

And let’s talk tone. The way Northerners are described when they show up in King’s Landing is... gross. Dirty. Sullen. Uncouth. They bring the smell of snow and smoke and old gods into the nice, civilized complacency of the South, and the court acts like they're watching a pack of feral dogs crash a garden party. Even the Dornish, who are also not white-coded in many ways and face plenty of racism, are still seen as exotic—dangerous, sure, but sexy-dangerous. The Northmen? They’re not fetishized. They're feared. Loathed. Dismissed as brutes and barbarians with ways that are so different that they should be feared.

And this is a classic move in imperialist narratives: you marginalize a people, rob them of power and culture, and the second they resist? You demonize them. Turn them into monsters. Say they commune with beasts and demons. (Sound familiar? Because it should.) Whether it’s North American Indigenous peoples being accused of “savagery” the moment they defend their land, or these colonized peoples being portrayed as superstitious and irrational for refusing assimilation and persisting with their culture—Westeros is playing that greatest hit on repeat.

So yes, when I say the Starks are Indigenous-coded, I also mean that the way Westeros treats the North is textbook colonial anxiety. They’re tolerated when they stay quiet and frozen. But when they rise? When they win? Suddenly, they’re not just a threat—they’re unnatural. Inhuman. Monstrous.

And if that ain’t some real-world racial politics wrapped in an easy to swallow fictional narrative, idk what is.

Now let’s talk Boltons vs. Manderlys, the perfect case study in Indigenous vs. Settler-coded houses when it comes to the cultural conversation. The Boltons? Chaotic evil First Men energy. They used to flay people alive, possibly made cloaks out of skin (ok im sorry that’s so baller), and ruled from the Dreadfort for thousands of years as a rival to House Stark. They’re the North turned inward and twisted—a cautionary tale about what happens when colonization doesn’t get you, but intergenerational trauma does. Still, they’re part of the land, part of the same heritage. The Manderlys, on the other hand? Total transplants. They got kicked out of the Reach, showed up in the North all teary-eyed and humble, and the Starks were like, “Fine, you can live in this swamp by the sea.” And they did! Respectfully! But they never converted to the Old Gods. They still pray to the Seven, build stone cities, and have the audacity to name their castle White Harbor. That's like moving into someone’s house and renaming it “Good Christian Suburb.” (like. Like americ--*gets dragged off stage*) But they're chill. Because they never pretended to be something they're not. And they never tried to change the ways of the lands and the peoples who welcomed them when no one else would.

Even within the North, there's a whole spectrum of resistance vs. assimilation. You’ve got the Free Folk beyond the Wall—who are basically the “burn it all down, no kings, no lords” crowd—then the Starks, who are like, “Fine, I’ll wear a crown if it helps keep the peace,” and then the Manderlys, who are “we love it here please don’t send us back south.” It’s not unlike real-world Indigenous communities: some stayed in the woods, some ran into the mountains, some took settler names and built schools—but the throughline is survival. Resistance is survival.

And that, my fellow losers, is what the Starks are all about. They are the final boss of stubborn cultural preservation. They’re the people who would rather freeze than bend the knee to "gods" they don’t believe in. When Ned Stark says “Winter is Coming,” he’s not just talking about weather—he’s quoting a generational mantra. This, too, shall pass. And we will still be here. He's got seasonal depression and ancestral memory and PTSD, and he's still out here doing what is best for his people (well. not anymore, i guess.)

The North Remembers—and So Should You

When we say the Starks and the North are Indigenous-coded, we’re not just slapping a label on because it sounds cool and we’re desperate for representation. We’re talking about a culture that predates colonizers, resists assimilation, honors its dead, and survives against impossible violence. Whether it’s through sacred trees, communal leadership, or refusing to compromise on your ancestral values, the Starks represent the heartbeat of a people who never left their land—because the land never left them.

So yes. The Starks are “brown,” in the way that means something. Not necessarily in skin tone (though there’s canon support for that too), but in soul. In story. In surviving. And if you disagree, I’ll meet you in the godswood under the bleeding tree, and we can discuss it like Northerners—with our fuckin fists.

(this is a joke ur allowed other opinions)

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The Boltons do slay in all senses of the word. You do have to hand it to them for achieving a level of cunt few other houses have

fire and blood’s biggest weakness is that there’s only one bolton mention in the whole thing and it’s teenage barba bolton trying to marry aegon the miserable so that the crown will feed her starving people because cregan stark seemingly just isn’t. i need to know more about them and what they were getting up to but well. peaceful lands and well behaved people rarely make history😇

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“Rhaegar owned night-black plate armor, with the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen decorated in rubies on its breastplate,and underneath the plate he wore golden ringmail. Rhaegar decorated his helm with gold, orange, and red silken streamers resembling flames.” -a wiki of ice and fire

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what is it about that blond that sends Starks into heat

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cersei lannister had about 3-5 business days of peace at the end of a game of thrones where it’s like. plan she singlehandedly concocted to murder her abusive terrible husband THE KING goes off without a hitch literally flawless execution most successful kingslaying in westerosi history. rhaegar outfit at his funeral. anyone who suspects foul play is in the dungeon or on her side. coup d’état equally successful. her bastard son installed as ruling king. ned stark in prison about to swear fealty to the lannisters and get ransomed cutting hostilities off at the pass. one stark kid in custody and littlefinger promised to take care of the second one. annoying brothers-in-law scattered to opposite ends of the kingdom away from her away from each other not a problem. lysa arryn doing fuck all. tyrion in enemy custody and not the walls. father and brother going to war for her. also jon arryn who she never liked is dead as a freebie. and then she never came down from this high but can you blame her

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loras tyrell, knight of flowers, mace tyrell's youngest and favorite son, and maybe the current most skilled swordsman in all of westeros 🏵️🏵️🏵️ and alive. definitely alive.

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Garlan Tyrell

Also known as Garlan the Gallant, is an anointed knight of House Tyrell and is the second son of Mace Tyrell and Alerie Hightower.

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johnathan snow is so funny he's good at everything thats not his job they should have let him become a wedding planner or a banker with his emotional support wolf creature instead he's trapped in the the night's watch

My favorite thing about him is that by the end of storm and throughout a dance with dragons he develops this latent preternatural warg super strength and he never once really reflects on it or uses it in a productive manner because he’s too busy running around doing other shit. He likes his counting.