#anti asoiaf fandom

[pixiecactus]

Sansa knew all about the sorts of people Arya liked to talk to: squires and grooms and serving girls, old men and naked children, rough-spoken freeriders of uncertain birth. Arya would make friends with anybody.

so i've seen this quote used in a "see arya is not an outsider" kind of way, and here are my two cents that nobody asked for.

for me arya being an outsider is deeply connected to her self-esteem issues... so in this badly written essay i will (just kidding i couldn't write an essay even for the life of me):

imo this quote is a passive way to show sansa's classism, yeah arya is a friendly little girl, that's true, but i take more this quote as sansa meaning arya's comfortable in making friends with "the lowest of the low". there's a reason why jeyne poole and beth cassel were only sansa's friends and not arya and sansa's friends. growing up in winterfell, arya's mother, her assigned teacher and her older sister and her friends told and showed arya time and time again how she's not an adequate lady and how her behavior as a 9 year old child is completely unacceptable of a lady from a great house. (which is a little hypocrate coming from someone who once was 12 year old "mud pie maker" catelyn tully)

hello "arya's self-esteem issues that people love to ignore", there's a reason why when gendry tells arya she looked pretty and ladylike (i know the phrase used is "a nice oak tree" but guess what my book copy is in spanish and here gendry says "un roble bonito" and bonito is directly translated as "pretty") arya thinks gendry is mocking her, because she believes only her father and jon would say something like that of her while being truthful.

for fucks sake, it gets even worse. arya was anxiously worried about her mother and brother not wanting her back because she had to survive in middle of a war, she had to pass as a boy to avoid sexual violence, which women, girls and even femme presenting people are the primary victim of, she had to kill in situations where it was "kill or be killed", she had to work as a slave, she's dirty and could be simply defined as a mess, completely the contrary of the idea of someone "ladylike" that has been drilled into her head by many people.

arya is loved by her brothers, smallfolk and the people that worked for the starks, but was made an outsider in her own homeplace because she's not good at performing the gender roles expected of her. nobility treats her as an outsider, just because this little girl is gender non conforming. arya is still growing up with low self-esteem with the feeling that nobody would ever want her except for jon. a feeling that was born of failing her obligatory "lady duties" and being bullied and mocked by this fact, by the very own teacher employed by her family and some family members alike. we have arya's own mother constantly comparing the child who excels at her tasks with the child that fails these tasks in an attempt for the child that is failing to improve, which is horrible methoding and only ends up with arya feeling even more inadequate as someone who is a member of a noble house.

even the "arya was clearly ned's favourite" is laughable for me, because even in the part where ned gives back needle to arya, and decides to indulge her with water dancing lessons, he's only doing this with the hope that this is simply a child's interest that arya will grow out of it, and she will finally have the realization that her only place in life is being a "dutyful lady wife" whose sons will be able to be everything she ever wanted to be only because they will be born with a cock between their legs, that's what he tells her. so there we have ned stark passively enforcing gender roles on the child that asked for the possibility of breaking gender norms while she's in a possision of power.

and having both parents telling her in one way of another that her behavior is wrong and not what is expected of her, this only reinforces arya's idea of how inadequate she truly feels, how she will never fit in nobility and how she will have to let go big parts of who she is, to comply with westeros's patriarchal idea of what a noble woman needs to be.

[babybells123]

I’ll never get over this - what an insanely cryptic statement to make . It’s also interesting that GRRM will give long rambling answers about other ships (as he tends to do in interviews and asks) but this is his response here. Short and sweet but ambiguous and entirely up to one’s interpretation - essentially think about what you’ve read.

And then it had me thinking…

To imply that George isn’t a careful writer and doesn’t put immensely intricate thought into every sentence he writes is entirely reductive to him as a writer. Especially if you claim to be a fan of said writing (you’d have to be apart of this fandom). This is the man who has taken 13 years to write TWOW, who consistently writes, scraps, and rewrites chapters if he dislikes them or they don’t fit what he’s envisioned.

And with a fandom that has discussed, debated and analysed every possible theory - providing some well-thought out essays onto the internet, consistently stating that nothing is ever a coincidence with George before delving into a lengthy analysis - it has me wondering why said theorists and ‘very intelligent’ contingents of fans will be grasping, bursting blood vessels, losing their mind and their sanity in the process just to disprove a possible match between J/S.

Now as an example that I’ve come across just yesterday on the infamous r/asoiaf - When S*nsan is brought into the conversation, it’s absolutely accepted as a plausible theory due to *checks notes* people devoting time to and picking apart evidence and to the wider fandom either not dismissing it or remaining neutral about it. (I mean, the redditor I was made privy to yesterday just disproved the Ashford tourney theory and it’s connection to Jon on the basis that it was made by a s*nsan shipper - wow !! Thanks :)) I never knew , finally my rose tinted glasses have been removed and I can bow down to you, oh wise redditor … these J words are CRAZY delusionals indeed!!

This is just one example among the many of the possible future romances that are debated endlessly on the various social media platforms , and all said ships - whether they’ve met or interacted or are very close or whatever require analysis . Deep deep analysis. Picking apart sentences, imagery, chapter ordering, literary references you name it . We all become literature students, and every ship is privy to it and hey ! More power to them - we’re all just having fun here theorising about all the possibilities for a book/s that has not yet been released.

So it begs the question , and bear with me here - I know I’ve been talking quite a lot about people opposed to and entirely dismissive of my ship - but yesterdays’ conundrum had me thinking about generalised fandom receptiveness.

See, normal fans (normal people) when presented with a theory that they genuinely believe to be so absurd/dislike/are entirely opposed to , would simply block the user, filter the content, and move on with their lives. A far happier solution, it means you’re not worked into a frenzy over something you’re aware you don’t like. Yay! Everyone’s happy! But…..

People must be debby-downers and ruin the fun , turning into genuine clouds of negativity, invading tags in which they don’t belong, creating anti blogs, writing lengthy essays disproving it all - yep, we’ve seen it, and we just ignore it as best we can.

But it gets to a point where it’s just frustrating. Because this is all so painfully hypocritical. If said intelligent fandom can provide 3 hour video essays, 50,000 word essays and reddit debates of threads with 100+ replies based on the notion of tyrion being a targaryen, or j*nrya is actually canon or the blue rose is metaphor for a future romance whatever theory that’s been put into the world - why - gods why does the entire fandom jump on the bandwagon of hating/dismissing Jonsa as soon as it’s brought up as a theory??

When we are just doing what everyone else has been doing vigorously for the last 13 years - theorising, analysing, debating like we’re literature students (and I’m a lit major, so it does feel this way). And whilst we quietly engage with and make our content, we’re ridiculed, picked apart, and vilified elsewhere for being awfully stupid people - because ….why?? Oh yes, that’s right - it is not a valid plausible theory at all, we just ship it because we self insert as sansa and jon is a heroic figure or the even sillier assumption - because Kit and Sophie are attractive people (which indeed they are, but most theories stem from the books, lmao.)

Sooo, essentially jonsas aren’t allowed into the club because …. (Well I’m actually still wondering why), because every other popular ship theory is either incestuous or involves a child being shipped with a grown person.) so Jonsa is obviously the latter, but that’s not the reason that the general fandom (J*nerys and to an extent, J*nrya) dislike them because those too - are incestuous.

If you’re an individual who is uncomfortable with all incest ships period . Then I respect that since I understand it. What I don’t understand, as seen through reddit and what I was made privy to yesterday, - were the multitude of disprovers fine with J*nerys and J*nrya and S*nsan but god forbid someone brings up Jonsa because then it’s a crackship - except all those other ships I mentioned are valid because people have analysed and theorised and written metas etc etc etc and Jonsa’s are just plain silly crackshippers.

I really have to wonder about fandom mentality, because it’s making less and less sense to me ….

Anyway George you ARE a sly one and I’ll always giggle when I come across that image.

[agentrouka-blog]

It's always "Sansa was so stupid and naive for not immediately understanding that Joffrey was a total creep" and never "Not one member of her family decided to warn her that their dad had handed her over to a total creep for the rest of her life".

Like, if you want to talk about Sansa "betraying Ned and selling out her family" (which she never did, but never mind), first explain to me how they didn't betray and sell her out first.

[venusintheblindspots-blog]

I really wish the HOTD fandom would stop with the false “concern” they claim to have for black characters, specifically in regards to Laena.

Alicent did not ‘steal’ Laena’s storyline, Laena was sidelined for Daemyra. If the writers wanted to, they could’ve included both Rhaenicent & Laenyra.

It doesn’t help that the same people saying this, are the same people harping on the idea that Laena would be okay with Daemon sleeping with his niece on the day of her funeral instead of comforting his daughters. Polygamous or not, she’s a mother, her children would’ve been her first priority.

And while we’re on the topic of polygamy, this fandom only uses it to justify the ill treatment of woc and reduce them down to yes men for the white women yall self insert into.

[fvckinaphrodite]

You know those fics where Catelyn Tully Stark is depicted as this evil bitch who disrespect the North, its people, its culture, its Gods? That the Northmen hate her because she's one of the southern ladies throughout centuries that become the Lady of Winterfell and believe in the Faith of the Seven? That she somehow always insists for her children to stay away from their direwolves till the end? Where, I ask? Where tf those craps ever written in canon?! WHERE?!

Because I tell you I'm reading A Storm of Swords right now, and I find nothing of those shits. She's always courteous to the Northmen, even those who are huge-rawdy-closer to wildling type and don't give a shit about propriety like Greatjon Umber. She doesn't look down on Maege Mormont who fights just as good as men like those crap fics suggest. When Robb comes back to Riverrun from his campaign in Westerlands and they learn about what she's done, Maege sympathizes with Cat and tells her that she would've done the same if it were her daughters that's been taken. The Greatjon lifts her in the air and tells her some optimistic motivational words about how Robb gonna beat Jaime again. What else, she's horrified when Robb tells her that Grey Wind is not allowed inside the keep because he doesn't like Jeyne Westerling's uncle. She REMINDS Robb that Grey Wind is part of him, and BELIEVES that the Old Gods has sent the direwolves for her children to be their protectors. A chill literally "went through her" when she believes that Jeyne's uncle is not good for her son, all because Grey Wind also doesn't trust him (or as Robb says, "doesn't like the smell of him). She has to beg Robb to send Jeyne's uncle away.

All I'm saying is that, I won't give any Catelyn haters a minute of my life if I can help it. Just say you are a misogynist and be done with it. The fandom really hates her all because she refuses to mother a child that is not her responsiblity, that she owes nothing of. They hate her because she's just trying to save her remaining children--two little girls whom in the eyes of her eldest son worth next to nothing. Robb refuses to save his sisters, and when his mother takes matter in her own hands, they condemn her, as if they wouldn't have done the same thing in her position. It's so easy to see her as the obstacle to Robb's campaign, yet people tend to forget that any decent parent would do the exact same thing. Especially when ASOIAF universe is filled with murdered children.

[saltywinteradult]

oh, d*ny stans. never change.

[thewitchqueenofharrenhal]

*logs back in after hiatus*

*sees that people on this site still can’t be normal towards Elia of Dorne*

When will the Rhaegar stans leave Elia aloneeeeeee. Also extra points to the Lyanna fans constantly insecure over Elia of Dorne.

[emptyportrait]

it's insane how daenerys also depicts vulnerable girlhood like other characters in asoiaf and is despised for making her own decision while rhaenyra, too, gets contempt for showing vulnerable girlhood, womanhood AND motherhood. It's amazing how these aspects for their character is disregarded by people so that they can hate on the characters and label daenerys and rhaenyra as, one dimensional girlboss characters who have no complexity. oh and another reason why people won't talk about this vulnerable side of dany and nyra's character is because, checks notes, targaryens are eViL no matter what...

[asharaxofstarfall]

you go into the critical tags of a male character and its like "yeah he abused women and murdered innocent kids but he's not outright terrible" and then you go into the normal tags of a female character and they're calling her an evil bitch for like, protecting her children or something

[sayruq]

one thing you have to understand about this fandom is that if sansa never asked for sweetsleep or blocked the maester from giving it to sweetrobin, the same people accusing her of murdering him would instead condemn her for denying him life saving medication that can manage his seizures

[iceywolf24]

Bran's arc includes

- Refusing to die when everyone expects you to

- Remembering yourself and helping others find their true selves

- Valuing life

- Finding hope and bravery even in the worst of times

- Being dutiful and protecting people

Yet some think Bran is going to be an evil sorcerer/will die and be possessed by bloodraven.

[catofoldstones]

if I see dudebros use fArya to refer to jeyne where it serves no contextual purpose one more time I’m going to scream because her name is jeyne, jeyne, it rhymes with pain

[katerina-q]

???

These two are losers.

Talk more about your boring self inserts characters instead to worry about lyanna "actual fans", the "deranged shippers" and projecting your bullshit onto them =_=