#characters i insist on writing for

[synchodai]

I get this impression that House of the Dragon doesn't get that "named" heirs aren't really the norm in Westeros. If it were that easy for someone to just give everything to their favorite child, Randall Tarly wouldn't have needed to force Sam to go to the Wall and Tywin could have simply chosen Cersei over Tyrion as heir of Casterly Rock.

If we look at the history Westeros borrows from, the concept of "naming" heirs wasn't really a thing in medieval England. Landed gentry didn't have direct say over the order of succession until the Statute of Wills in 1540. Before then, land and subsequent titles could only be inherited through agnatic primogeniture.

Agnatic primogeniture prioritized the living, eldest, trueborn son. Claims can only be passed on patrilineally. This means that a grandaughter can inherit a claim of her grandfather's titles through her father, but a grandson cannot be given the same through his mother. However, if his mother finally does have land and titles under her own name (not under her father's), only then does her son and other children enter the line of succession.

The reason it was like this was because it kept land and titles under one family. Daughters are less preferred because when they are married, they become part of their husband's family — meaning that any titles they receive will be inherited through a new line. This wouldn't be an ideal situation because it gives two families claims to the titles. The more claimants there are, the more unstable the hold the owner has.

In other words, agnatic primogeniture was practiced for stability. Because back in the day, titles weren't just property or land. They came with governorship over a people, so a stable and predictable transfer of titles was necessary to avoid civil conflicts and questions of legitimacy.

A landed lord or lady wasn't given the right to designate heirs for a few reasons:

Most of them were vassals who oversaw the land in the name of someone higher up. It technically isn't even theirs to give away (see: feudal land tenure).

The wishes of a human being are less predictable than having a determined line of succession based on birth order. What if he becomes incapable of declaring an heir either through illness or disability? What if he's captured and a bad actor forces him to name this person heir under threat of violence?

People died unexpectedly all time. This was before germ theory and modern medicine — child mortality was extremely high. With no refrigeration technology, a single poor harvest could mean dying from starvation. Bandits, cutthroats, and raiders were a constant threat. They could not afford to rely on a person choosing a different heir every time the old heir drops dead, because the landed lord/lady could die just as suddenly.

Even 21st century families stab each other in the back over who gets grandma's house — so imagine having an uncertain line of succession in the middle ages over a life-defining lordship and without a modern-day court system to mediate.

Going back to HotD, whenever Targaryens did go against the established line of succession, they could only have done it by consolidating the support of their vassals. Only royalty seemed to have the power to bend agnatic primogeniture, but even then they were beholden to it.

When Jaehaerys I ascended the throne over Aerea, it was mainly because there were those who saw Maegor the Cruel's act of disinheriting Jaehaerys as null and void. This restored Jaehaerys place in the line of succession above Aerea.

And when Rhaenys was passed over for Baelon, Jaehaerys had to convene his lords and offer compelling reasons as to why — her young age, her lack of an heir, her Velaryon last name, etc. It wasn't a given that just because she was a woman that she was ineligible. If he was doing it purely out of misogyny, he still had to legally justify his misogyny in order to strip away her rights.

Even after consolidating support, the book mentions Jaehaerys I and Viserys I's respective hold on the crown was still weakened. Even though their claims were backed by reasons cosigned by a powerful majority, they still had to ensure the security of their rule through other means. There were people who doubted their right to rule, and those people had to be placated with gifts (by Viserys) or intimidated into submission (by Jaehaerys).

So we come to Viserys I who never gave his vassals a reason why Rhaenyra should supercede his three sons other than, "I said so." Had he convened with his lords and maybe made the argument that a first marriage takes precendence over a second one, then maybe he could have set a new precedent and gathered support.

But no, he didn't. He relied on the power of his own words and the lords' personal oaths — oaths that he didn't exactly plan how he would enforce posthumously.

And the Realm did not choose to adopt a different succession law after Jaehaerys's designation of Baelon in 92 AC or the Council of Harrenhal choosing Viserys on 101 AC. If those two events did change anything, it was that now women were exempt from the line of succession for the crown and only the crown. It did not set the precedence that monarchs could freely choose heirs. It did not upend the whole system; it only made a tweak, as most lawful policy-changes do, by carving out at an exception. It was a committee, not a revolution.

Before and after the Dance, no other monarch, lord, or lady "declared" an heir that went against agnatic primogeniture, save for Dornish who have cognatic (equal-gender) primogeniture instead. Ramsay had to get rid of Roose Bolton's living trueborn son AND be legitimized by the crown in order to be recognized as heir (only a crowned monarch can legitimize baseborn children which is another world-building pillar a lot of people miss). Randall basically had to force Sam to abdicate because he wanted his younger brother to inherit instead. And of course, Tywin despite his intense hatred of Tyrion is forced to acknowledge him as his heir.

The rigidity of the line of succession is a major and constant source of conflict in the series, so it baffles me that people really thought that characters could just freely choose their heirs. That's why we have a civil war. It wasn't a misunderstanding. It's the expected consequences of someone carelessly going against a foundational tenent of the society they inhabit.

[demigods-posts]

me whenever i see people write off annabeth as an annoying and controlling and crazily jealous girlfriend with anger issues. understanding that the foundation of the rhetoric is based off of annabeth's behavior toward percy and rachel is tbotl and tlo. except annabeth's behavior in those books is soley due to the surplus amount of traumatic experiences she's had. ranging from her parents neglecting to care for her well-being when spiders attacked her in the middle of the night as a seven-year-old. to watching everyone she's ever dared to care for die, abandon, or leave her for a better option. so it's much more likely than annabeth was expressing great mental and emotional distress during a period of her life where it was uncertain if the boy she loved would drop dead on his sixteenth birthday. on top of having to uphold a reputation as the best strategist at camp half-blood and devise a plan to fight in a war and save the world before she's a sophomore in high school. so the notion that annabeth is an abusive and toxic individual lacks the consideration that maybe she was just a child forced to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders at all times.

[bicryptide]

"Rise leo is not canon queer/MLM-"

Be serious.

[fortheloveofexy]

it's a pet peeve of mine when ppl frame Andrew as hating Aaron and being needlessly cruel to him... bc while yes, their relationship is fractured and strained, Andrew genuinely cares about his brother and wants the best for him, he just doesn't know how to show that in a normal way.

like he might not know how to express it in a healthy manner but Andrew LOVES Aaron, like he truly just wants Aaron to be healthy and safe. It's like, his whole Thing. Aaron is one of the most important people in his life. Andrew wants him around. He'd do anything to protect him.

I guarantee Andrew wants to be emotionally close to Aaron too, he just doesn't have the tools to do that and the thought of letting someone in terrifies him. He also has no concept of what a healthy sibling relationship looks like, so he has no frame of reference to work from.

[stxrry-dxys]

“we need more complex female characters” y’all couldn’t even handle bloberta puppington

[iliterallyjustlivehere]

my favorite thing in the world is when a character who's been pretending not to be sick all day ends their inner monologue with "I was fine."

and the next paragraph starts with "I was not fine."

kills me.

[athina-blaine]

genuinely don't understand people who gripe about someone getting into dunmesh for m/m pairings as opposed to f/f when none of them are even close to being the main point of the series

[shaunashipman]

The journalists have been a problem since the screened but they’ve just gotten worse by sticking themselves into fandom discourse when they don’t need to be there at all. This is what one of them tweeted and it made me so angry:

https://x.com/kat__writes/status/1796683035514921368?s=46

https://x.com/kat__writes/status/1796683230629757217?s=46

because why are you speaking like this is an objective idea held by the whole fandom? countless fans loved the scene and loved bucktommy. If it didn’t resonate with some that doesn’t mean it’s objectively bad writing. I also cannot for the life of me understand how these scenes are being compared because in one, two of the guys are best friends not a couple and in the other, you have a canon couple and if a canon couple is talking to each other, obviously their flirting will be bold and outright and possibly sexual. The writers want us to know the couple is flirting. They don’t want us to dig deep for it in subtext. These are grown men in a relationship one of whom has been shown to very much enjoy sex and have a kinks already established. God forbid he flirt with his boyfriend and his boyfriend flirts with him beyond a little bat of the eyelashes.

yeah, that's not a journalist, that's a fan who happens to get paid to write about the show. and this is on her professional account? where she posts her actual interviews? babes no, that is literally why you have different personal and professional accounts. it doesn't need to be private/secret, but when you start putting your own biased opinions right next to what is supposed to be unbiased reporting, you lose credibility. if i can't trust you to separate your own feelings on a fucking twitter page then i can't trust you to do so in an interview.

the only people who have expressed an issue with the scene are ones who have found an issue with every aspect of tommy and bucktommy. not sorry, but i'm not listening to the opinions of people who have already decided they aren't going to like the scene before it happens, and can't even admit that.

[ilynpilled]

very passionately dislike this permeating opinion on other platforms that Brienne is flawless and therefore uninteresting. sure, she can be not your type of character, but reducing moral characters to “flawless” is so stupid. obvious grey morality is not the only way a character can be complex, and i feel like this fact often gets lost in discussions about a series like this one where so many of the characters are written to be very morally muddy. but brienne in no way falls into what is expected of a “perfect heroine”. she certainly doesn’t look like it physically. she is filled to the brim with insecurities. she can have a very absolutist view on morality at times. she can be naive, close minded, and judgmental. the romantic she is, she can fall for false appearances that cover up a complicated and harsh reality. even she buys into the ableist “imp” narrative. just because, at the end of the day, her heart is indisputably in the right place, and she is one of the truest heroes in the series, does not mean there are no layers to her. she is plenty flawed, bc she is plenty human. she also goes through development during the ASoS road trip. she is not just jaime’s catalyst for change. she grows because of him, and the perspective he provides, too. because there was room for her to grow. and there still is.

[wrishwrosh]

posting this excerpt separate from my “sheer misery” thread bc of the Implications that specifically shaving has for that one scene of dick winters in bastogne. elsewhere in the chapter roberts suggests that explicit efforts towards cleanliness generally and shaving specifically became associated with cowardice, ineffectiveness, and effeminacy. so then like WHAT is the purpose of that scene of dick shaving and WHO suggested it. bc i guess it is intended to read to modern audiences as stiff upper lip maintenance of normalcy (noble) and cleanliness (next to godliness). but the actual action of shaving on the front in the ardennes would to men actually there have suggested effeminate delusion?? much to consider!!

[qiu-yan]

in MDZS the novel, the innkeeper in Yunping mentions that people are too scared to go petition Yunmeng Jiang for help because someone once walked in on Sect Leader Jiang whipping a guy in the main hall, supposedly because the guy was a demonic cultivator.

[unironicallycringe]

man I'm just gonna say that it's incredibly fucking weird to walk onto a stranger's blog, project your own predatory age headcanons onto a character with no canon age, and then decide that means the blogger condones it.

like?? my dude?? the only person talking about that is you because it's your headcanon?

"you're bad because I think of this ageless character as a 30yo being paired with a teen" well I sure goddamn don't and I didn't need to hear that shit! it's not only extremely inappropriate, it's creepy as fuck! so like, maybe do some self-reflecting on why you decided that a stranger should abide by your headcanon, and maybe also stop doing that.

[ct-multifandom]

I don’t usually make posts like this, but I’ve been seeing a lot of anti-intellectual junk lately, and I really think we need to put the word “pretentious” up on a shelf until people learn what it actually means.

It doesn’t describe someone who likes artsy-fartsy deep meaning media. People who are pretentious are fake. They’re posers trying to be sophisticated and unique, not like other girls. They pretend to only like stuff they think will make them sound cool when they talk about it. They want to act like they know something you don’t, and they want attention for it.

By definition, if you genuinely enjoy something, you can’t be pretentious. If it resonates with you, and you analyze it, and you don’t care what people think, that’s the polar opposite, actually. If you love obscure experimental prog music, if you watch underground high concept indie films through English teacher eyes, if you spend hours in a modern art museum reading each piece as a vessel for storytelling, if your backpack’s full of poetry books that inspire you, if you play underrated games that were someone’s passion project, if you have an interest in studying the classics or the masters, you are not pretentious.

Of course, some people just don’t like some stuff, and that’s fine, but that’s not what this is about. Don’t let anti-intellectuals shame you for enjoying things just because your interests are inaccessible to them, because they refuse to be brave and put effort into critical thinking. You’re not stuck up for refusing to overlook the craft of artists.

[boyfridged]

i'm not gonna lie. most of the time the "is this character female coded" as well as "can you write this character as trans" discussions simply get too close to notions of gender essentialism for me to take them seriously.

[mumbledramblings]

I feel like we sometimes make Vash too much of a Main Character™️. I mean, he is the main character, but he is also the Comic Relief™️, you get me? He has the Plot-Driven Depression but some of the things that happen to him happen simply because its funnier this way. He's John Wick but also Bugs Bunny.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Sometimes I see people misinterpreting Arya's character and honestly, all it does is make me appreciate her that much more. George could've easily written her into as a basic archetype and instead, he gave us one of the most complex and well-developed characters in the series and I'm forever grateful for that 🫶🏾