#craster is just more literal about it

[visenyaism]

ASOIAF terrible fathers bracket FINAL FOUR: Jaehaerys Targaryen vs. Craster

Jaehaerys: I fully recognize this is probably my last chance to deliver unto y’all my anti-jaehaerys sermon, so I am gonna leave it all on the fucking field for you people today. Between passing over daenerys for his son against his wife’s wishes, making his wife carry 13 of his children against her wishes, forcing his terrified likely cognitively disabled 13 year old daughter to get married against her will (resulting in her violent death), exiling his 16 year old daughter to another continent for having premarital sex after holding her down and making her watch as he chopped her boyfriend in half with a sword and then saying it’s fine she had to resort to sex work because she was always a whore anyways, forcing his other 16 year old daughter to get married to an old man thousands of miles away from her home (resulting in her death), locking his final teenage daughter away from public view during her pregnancy and miscarriage (resulting in her suicide), making his 12 year old granddaughter marry his sixteen year old grandson and start trying for kids (resulting in her death) and passing over Rhaenys for Viserys (resulting in the dance of the dragons, which caused the downfall of house targaryen), Jaehaerys was a MENACE to each and every woman in his life, way too personally invested in his teen daughters’ sex lives in a way that does carry sinister implications, and ultimately laid the seeds for the cataclysm that would swallow his whole family forever. Looked at his daughters and all he could see was a wife (whether for himself, his sons, or another old man he needed to gain power from) and a future incubator he would exchange the life of for a grandson. see you in hell

craster: marries his daughters and sacrifices his sons to the white walkers

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

god tywin lannister deserved worse

just remembering elias death and i wanna puke and the way tywin talks about elia and what happened is so damn gross

but rip tommen and myrcella we all know what’s about to happen in the next book :/

the cycle of violence just keeps spinning and damn you tywin for beginning it

(i got a bit crazy in the tags 💀)

[atopvisenyashill]

I saw this reddit post about what if House Velaryon had dragons from the beginning like the Targaryens but they were sea dragons that prefer to be in the ocean than on land and I want to what you would think would happen that was the case. What if the Velaryons had sea dragons as opposed to the flying fire breathing dragons of the Targaryens? How might it effect events like the conquest, the dance and so on? And what do you see certain Velaryon characters naming their sea dragons?

omg omg.

SO FIRST. let me use this as a vehicle for "first men magic" vs "valyrian magic" because one thing i noticed is that first men don't....idk how to describe it but "gatekeep" their magic bloodlines the way valyrians do. all the starks - even the ones who don't "look" like starks - are wargs, for example, and while you would think jon would have the "most" magical ability given his first men and valyrian heritage, it's bran the one with andal and first men heritage that has really embraced his magic. now is this because bran is inherently more powerful than his siblings or simply because he's been in a position to learn and actually wants to learn? is it just like, an accident of birth the way usain bolt is real good at running and michael phelps is real good at swimming or is there some sort of blood element and if so, why has it affected bran but not any of the other starklings so much? but even then, if there is a blood element, how does it even work? is all you need is some first men heritage? it's not like the wildlings practice incest marriages either - craster is considered an abomination by the wildlings as much as the night's watch after all, and we get a comment from ygritte about how the wildlings usually don't marry within their own villages because it's a sort of pseudo incest. it's also not like varamyr, for example, has any sort of Fancy Magical Blood Lineage the way brown ben plumm has distant valyrian lineage. so the question is did the first men simply give/force their warg/weirwood hivemind/dreaming abilities onto any first men around who was interested or did they attempt to gatekeep it but couldn't manage it? i actually do think it's likely we'll get some clarity there through bran and i also imagine it's going to be a wild, kind of evil answer that none of us can possibly predict lol BUT that leads me into my second point which is...

you do gotta wonder how that magic works when it comes to the velaryons - we have to assume they did some level of gatekeeping because they're valyrians and that's literally all valyria fuckking DID was go "magic and power for me but not for thee" but how much?

is there a specific threshold of valyrian magic that makes it easier to claim a sea snake? or is it more similar to the first men, where just being part of that culture is enough?

what does "part of that culture" even entail - i mean can a random ass celtigar also ride a sea snake because they have distant valyrian heritage or do you have to have VELARYON SPECIFIC blood?

are they big on brother sister marriages?

if you can claim a sea dragon, can you Also claim a dragon, as in, if you are capable of doing one can you do the other or are they exclusive to your bloodline?

how many sea serpents are there and do they shift gender like the fire dragons do?

which one is seen as more powerful? that’s going to massively affect how everyone sees the velaryons too. like….how do you even handle having not just Two Magical Families but they have completely different magical things? Do the Targaryens become less special? or are the velaryons elevated?

how does that affect the crown?? i mean, would aegon want one of his sisters to claim a sea snake, even?? could they, with their velaryon mother??

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN AFTER THE LAST DRAGON DIES. if the velaryons still have sea snakes………..or if the sea snakes die at the same time as the dragons, whomst is the last sea snake rider?

how does THAT affect the dragonseeds?

if we go with "anyone can claim a dragon you just need patience and courage" can anyone also claim a sea snake and if so, WE HAVE SEVERAL SEA FARING CULTURES AND SUBCULTURES HANGING AROUND HERE!!!

when it comes to like…..battle and stuff. first of all, the iron islands? fucked lmao, at least for a while. sea serpents could in general do some real damage in the coastal cities like white harbor, lannisport, oldtown, etc. i would imagine daemon & corlys would be using them extensively in the stepstones. the greyjoys but especially the modern day ones like euron victarion balon fuck even asha would absolutely want to get their hands on an egg or whatever to have their own. There is the question of Laena, Laenor, and Rhaenyra’s boys - if you don’t really need to be a Velaryon to claim a sea snake, what if Jace or Luke just pull an Addam and claim one to legitimize themselves? That would affect who is delivering messages - i mean, as a rider of a sea snake, are you safe to ride during too fucked up of a storm? Would they send Baela on Moondancer instead? - and how they go about planning to fight, like in the gullet for example. Then there’s Rhaenys’ kids. Does Corlys want them to claim dragons still or does he encourage one to get a sea snake? what’s ALYN doing omg. i think the greens would try harder to get the silent five over to there side Quickly because it would give them access to sea snakes, perhaps prioritizing them over the triarchy.

this is like “what if the starks knew and told everyone they were wargs the whole time” because like, idk, you’d think some sort of magical rivalry might pop up there, and there Is a sort of magical rivalry already building with the various visions and name drops of enemies from euron, bloodraven, and meli, so is there a magical rivalry between the velaryons and targaryens? and we know the naming conventions for dragons is different and also varries by family so does that mean there's a weird naming convention for the sea serpents? whew. Anyways names-

alyssa v: she’d go descriptive for sure, and it would be a forever iconic name like dreamfyre’s is. rainclaw. crystalsnout. idk.

corlys: a valyrian root for sure. vaedar means coin and he dreamed of being rich, made a plan, and fuckin won so. vaedax? what if he just called his sea snake vaegal before jaehaerys could name his kid vaegon. lol.

laena: i think if sea snakes live a long time, she’d go for a fully grown one that someone else rode, so it’s likely to have a valyrian name, likely of a god’s. i think something based on “korzion” which means steel, maybe? i can see daemon v or rhaenys/visenya on a sea snake named korzeys or korzax.

alyn: he canonically loves to name things after his mom. the valyrian word for mouse is genes so…genax? marildon sounds too much like a real person name.

laenor & addam: seasmoke also works for a sea dragon & idk it’s cute and gay, it fits them. jacaerys: i think he chooses “vermax” because of the similarity to “vermithor” as in they have the same word root. so sea snake version of whatever verm is. vermys.vaermon. i think jacaerys would still claim a dragon tho, bc he’s his mother’s heir (tm). lucerys: obviously arrax is valyrian but i’m not sure what the root here is. it might be hunter? i was thinking of a water equivalent, swim, dive, stroke, stalk, but that’s not in the valyrian dictionary someone page djp. he gets a sea snake for sure. joffrey: no idea what the root of tyraxes is, the closest i could find was tresy which means son (which. 😔). taerlys. oo actually that’s nice.

daenaera: something descriptive, in line with names like sunfyre, grey ghost, etc., something like…pearlwaters? moonglow?

aurane waters: he is scamming some poor sucker out of their sea snake eggs, he’s getting the two prettiest for him and montereys, and his gets a pretty name. coralfyre. montereys: aurane is picking a valyrian name for his lil baby bestie, it’s what the kid deserves. embar means sea so…emberlion? embraxes?

[faiakishi]

im back with a game of thrones update

after watching through a lot of the show very quickly i have two episodes left, which are the ive heard are absolutely terrible and are the reason my dad (who says season 1-4 are almost perfect television and a great adaptation) hates the show so much. my mom and i have been pointing out dumb things while watching (such as lady mormont being shown turning into a white walker, then being shown on a funeral pyre despite literally every white walker shattering??) but ive still heard that the dumbest and worst things are in these last two episodes.

as curious as i am to see the "terrible ending" ive heard so much about im not really looking forward to whatever these episodes have in store

I will admit that my memory of that episode is hazy due to traumatically blocking most of it out, but it was just the white walkers who shattered, right? White walkers are different from wights. White walkers are seemingly live people turned into whatever they are now, and presumably can still 'grow up' as it's shown that Craster's sons all become white walkers themselves. Wights are reanimated corpses-unintelligent, fragile, and decaying. Lyanna Mormont became a wight. And I think they all just collapsed at the end of it. So...that part at least was not a plot hole.

The dead/survived ratio in the Battle of the Long Night was just fucking ridiculous. Yes, it was crazy and random and tons of people died, but no one really important. Pretty much just everyone the writers didn't really have more material for and wanted to justify getting rid of. Jorah's unrequited love for Daenerys? Doesn't matter anymore! Theon? His redemption arc was over anyway! Ed Tollett being irrelevant now that Jon is a king and there are no POV characters in the Watch anymore? That's cool, he can just die! Beric Dondarrion-okay, I am STILL salty about what they did with him, he's already dead in the books but (and this is a spoiler but I'm trying to encourage you to read the books) he dies bring Catelyn Tully back to life, who then takes his place as Lady Stoneheart at the head of the Brotherhood Without Banners. Meanwhile fucking Sam survives. Don't get me wrong, I love Sam, but how he's portrayed in the show-mf would not have lived. They tried to make it a GRRM bloodbath but critically misunderstood what he did to make his deaths feel so brutal and realistic.

I will say, as much as I would have loved little Lyanna living happily ever after as her badass self-killing a zombie giant while having the life crushed out of her was a death worthy of her. And this is Game of Thrones, so honestly that's as much as you can hope for.

One of the places-I mean, there are many places D&D went wrong, but one of the big ones I think was the decision to make the Long Night a secondary plot point and treat the conquering of King's Landing as the real end battle. Germ has likened the white walkers and the army of the dead to climate change and the advance of the Night King during the War of Five Kings is very much a political metaphor-people are fighting over something dumb like who gets a chair while the real threat goes unheeded, and when it arrives it will not care who sits what throne. Rushing through that just to get back to 'who gets the Iron Throne' is profoundly missing the whole point.

Really, Germ first thought the novels would be a trilogy. The first book detailing the War of Five Kings and the birth of Dany's dragons and her rise to power, Book 2 being Dany returning to Westeros and the ensuing conflicts that will cause, and Book 3 being the war against the 'real' enemy. We aren't even through Book 1.

[mummer]

hi! so im super curious about this post and what you mean by blood curse? could you talk more about it? it’s a very interesting take and I want to hear more of what you think

hmm yeah! it's kind of more of a figure of speech than anything lol— i don't think there's like, a literal magical Blood Curse physically destroying anything— but it's more of a thematic curse. there's something to be said about how the red wedding is kind of the Definitional Asoiaf Moment right. asos is a book very much concerned with breaking taboos and natural laws-- breaking of guest right at the red wedding and at craster's, the kingslaying of robb and joffrey, tyrion's kinslaying of his father, bran's possession of hodor (maybe more that i'm forgetting). but the red wedding is like. The moment. it's such a moment, in fact, that it ripples backwards in time through asoiaf's prismatic dreamscape. theon sees the red wedding months before it happens in his dreams, dany sees it at the house of the undying, jon and bran (iirc?) both see it in their dreams as/after it happens. it's such a genuinely heinous act against nature it bleeds through time. bleeds through the book itself!

tywin orchestrates it to win the war "cheaply" but the rent comes due in affc, a book about examining the consequences of a world whose enforced codes and ideals (the chivalric paradigm itself!) are so deeply unnatural, so contradictory and dissonant that they are destined for collapse. where asos is about the breaching of natural law, affc is about unnatural law being laid bare as a result (why affc feels more thematically concerned with gender, for example). tywin is not a figure of perfection but just a rotting body. more rotten than usual. they keep telling me that house lannister won this war! all those honour codes and norms and stories are only hiding deeply entrenched violences (eg. if gender norms are so natural why must they be enforced through violence?). beneath the golden sheen of chivalry is just a nightmare of blood. the red wedding is so foul an act that it can't be covered up in shrouds like rhaegar's children were. the emperor has no clothes now! you cannot look away from it, look without seeing, or go away inside forever. the curse is blood begetting blood, like lady stoneheart's wraith, who can think of nothing but feeding on death. it's something that begs to be witnessed so powerfully that it rips through the psychic realm. yeah alright i read this over and it makes no sense and im talking about like four completely different things ah well Siri send post

[agentrouka-blog]

Sorry I should have phrased better, the argument is that the attraction is geared more towards women who are like Catelyn. Or is it the role that he wants someone to fulfill, the idea of Mrs Snow as a Cat placeholder to reenact Ned Cat as Lord Lady of Winterfell?

I see what you mean.

(TL,DR: I think the point is to subvert the idea of recreating Ned and Cat. If you want the opinion of someone who likes that theory, you still need to ask someone else.)

Jon, yes, essentially wants to recreate his childhood home but with himself at the center. But he doesn't want to be Ned, specifically, with Cat, specifically. He is not attracted to "women like Catelyn", and Catelyn herself is a source of anxiety and even resentment.

He is into the general idea of a highborn lady with all the attendant skills and qualities.

Because he wants this:

I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb. Val would want to keep her sister's son, but we could foster him at Winterfell, and Gilly's boy as well. Sam would never need to tell his lie. We'd find a place for Gilly too, and Sam could come visit her once a year or so. Mance's son and Craster's would grow up brothers, as I once did with Robb.

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me.

He wants his home, but without any of the shame and condemnation and insecurity. Lord of Winterfell, children, a family.

Part of that image, a necessary part, is the Lady Wife. And Jon actually respects the role of the noble lady, against popular opinion. But she is not at the center of this fantasy. It's not about copying Ned and Cat, it's about the roles they inhabited there as parents.

Sansa has the mirroring fantasy about her children with Willas.

If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters, too. In Sansa's dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya.

They match up exactly.

Extrapolating from the desire to recreate their lost family through their children, you could argue that they want to be Ned and Cat 2.0.

It certainly birthed the popular theory of a political marriage between them that will grow into love eventually.

I don't subscribe to that, though.

Sansa also wants to name a son Eddard after her father, and Jon is dreaming of fostering children (no bastards, no hostages, foster children) so already this fantasy is about moving forward with distinct improvements on the original.

But also, while this fantasy playing out at Winterfell with Stark looks can only happen if you combine Jon and Sansa, the bare bones are always possible for Sansa in any number of political marriages. Not all men in Westeros are violent scum, so she could have this Willas fantasy, realistically, with anyone. This was always always always the path she was supposed to be on. Zero development, outside of changing the location where it plays out.

And it does absolutely nothing to address "No one will ever marry me for love."

Jon, also, literally could have tried to have this, but he rejected it. Accepting it with a different Lady Wife to become Lord of Winterfell after all doesn't work for me personally, because it undercuts the significance of what it meant for him to reject this title. To choose bastardy.

Ned and Cat were a political marriage gone well, and they have their own complex and tragic and sweet story, but it is not at all what I see playing out for Jon and Sansa.

That one - to me - is absolutely going to have to be a love story first. Independent of political benefit, independent of fantasy families, it has to be about who they are as individual people. A romance.

For Sansa, because she is more than a claim and a womb. She needs to be chosen for herself, without any regard for those two things. For her kindness and her wit, her creativity, her intelligence and her ability to love.

For Jon, because he is more than a sword and a man with Stark blood or a good provider and protector or whatever. He needs to be chosen for his own self, his nobility of spirit, his dumb sense of humor, his sense of responsibility, his romanticism, his ability to love.

If GRRM doesn't do that, if they are first pressed together by political gain, then their marriage is about blood and claim first, and the romance is... just a gimmick, an extra. It will hold little weight in the plot and it would not subvert anything. It would be incidental and potentially superfluous.

They need to choose each other first, unlike Ned and Cat. They were lucky to be as compatible as they were, they made a noble choice to make it work, but so do the vast majority of political couples one way or the other. Love becomes an incidental benefit to turning people's bodies into political tools.

Why would GRRM tell that story with Jon and Sansa? He already told it with Ned and Cat.

Jon and Sansa need to fall in love when there is no benefit, no necessity, no hope of that fantasy they share.

Love has to be that important on its own, a worthy prize even with no promise of its fulfillment. If they choose that and remain faithful to it, they will earn its fulfillment narratively, against all odds. And then they can create the family they long for together.

I know many jonsas would not agree with this, but it's my personal take on the couple and what GRRM is driving toward on the theme of romantic love.

[butterflies-dragons]

I don't think antis know about meaning of 'willowy'. When Jon said that Val is a warrior princess not a willowy creature brushing her hair, willowy is not an insult. It means tall, slender and graceful. And Sansa qualifies as willowy brushing her and like knights. It seems like Jon throwing shade on Sansa, but why? Considering he liked her brushing Lady hair and he himself wanted to be knight. Why he subtly remember Sansa while differentiating her with Val?

This is what I wrote about Val and the willowy creature line a while ago:

Val

Repeat after me: Val is not a warrior woman. Again: Val is not a warrior woman.  One more time: Val is not a warrior woman. If you don’t believe me, then read this:

However, in my own defense, I should note that Dalla was not a “warrior woman” per se. She was from a warrior culture, yes; one that gave women the right, but not the obligation, to be fighters. Ygritte was a warrior woman, as was (most conspicuously) the fearsome Harma Dogshead. Dalla and Val were not.

[Source]

But you may say, ¿What about the “the warrior princess and the willowy creature that only brushes her hair” quote?

Well, as GRRM has stated many times, all his POVS are “Unreliable Narrators”.  Being from a “warrior culture” doesn’t make you automatically a “warrior woman”.  But here is Jon Snow “deciding” that Val was a “warrior princess”. Once again, the contrast, the dichotomy in one single person: ¿A warrior like Arya, a princess like Sansa?  Not that Arya has ever fought in a war, but you get my point.  And Sansa was created following the princess archetype.

I will show you one of my favorite Jon’s passages that will serve us to read “the warrior princess and the willowy creature that only brushes her hair” line with a better and more revealing light:

I call this passage the “Jon -It’s nothing special- Snow”.  Or as we say in Spanish when we can’t get what we really want: “Al cabo que ni quería”, that can be translated as “I didn’t even want it anyway”.  Let’s see:

"Oh, I learn things everywhere I go.” The little man gestured up at the Wall with a gnarled black walking stick. “As I was saying … why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what’s on the other side?” He cocked his head and looked at Jon with his curious mismatched eyes. “You do want to know what’s on the other side, don’t you?”

“It’s nothing special,” Jon said. He wanted to ride with Benjen Stark on his rangings, deep into the mysteries of the haunted forest, wanted to fight Mance Rayder’s wildlings and ward the realm against the Others, but it was better not to speak of the things you wanted. “The rangers say it’s just woods and mountains and frozen lakes, with lots of snow and ice.”

—A Game of Thrones - Jon III

I mean… COME ON!  This is one of the most telling passages to know, to really know Jon’s true nature, and it’s very, very similar to the quote about “the warrior princess and the willowy creature that only brushes her hair”:

They are all convinced she is a princess. Val looked the part and rode as if she had been born on horseback. A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her.

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

“Some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her.”  Nah, it’s nothing special, I didn’t even want it anyway, not for me, no.

“It’s nothing special,” Jon said. He wanted to ride with Benjen Stark on his rangings, deep into the mysteries of the haunted forest, wanted to fight Mance Rayder’s wildlings and ward the realm against the Others, but it was better not to speak of the things you wanted. “The rangers say it’s just woods and mountains and frozen lakes, with lots of snow and ice.”

Do I have to say more???

Actually, yes, I have.

Jon Snow does really want a lady.  Jon Snow does really want to be a knight and rescue a maiden.  Jon Snow does really want a lady to love and be loved back by her.  Here some evidence:

Jon Snow wished that his mother were a highborn lady: “Not my mother, Jon thought stubbornly. He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her. Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind.”

Jon Snow wanted to be a hero like the Prince Aemon Dragonknight.  The same Prince Aemon that jousted in a tourney, won it, and crowned his sister and lady love “Queen of Love and Beauty”, something that is straight out from the courtly love book: “The Dragonknight once won a tourney as the Knight of Tears, so he could name his sister the queen of love and beauty in place of the king’s mistress”.

Jon Snow tried to comfort Gilly with courtesy: “Gilly, he called me. For the gillyflower.”  “That’s pretty.” He remembered Sansa telling him once that he should say that whenever a lady told him her name. He could not help the girl, but perhaps the courtesy would please her”.

Jon Snow put Ghost between Ygritte and him and remembers that knights put their swords between their ladies and themselves, something that is straight out from the courtly love book: “After that he had taken to using Ghost to keep her away. Old Nan used to tell stories about knights and their ladies who would sleep in a single bed with a blade between them for honor’s sake, but he thought this must be the first time where a direwolf took the place of the sword”.

Jon Snow imagined romancing Ygritte as if she were a lady: “If I could show her Winterfell … give her a flower from the glass gardens, feast her in the Great Hall, and show her the stone kings on their thrones. We could bathe in the hot pools, and love beneath the heart tree while the old gods watched over us”.

Jon Snow wished for a domestic life in Winterfell, with his wife and children: I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. […] I could name him Robb. Val would want to keep her sister’s son, but we could foster him at Winterfell, and Gilly’s boy as well. […] Mance’s son and Craster’s would grow up brothers, as I once did with Robb. He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily”.

Jon is a romantic that called his mare “sweet lady”.

Jon Snow closer friends in the Night’s Watch are Samwell Tarly and satin, they are literally male!Sansas.

Jon remembers fondly Sansa’s more feminine and ladylike traits: her romantic nature, her courtesies, her singing.

It’s also worth to mention that, despite Val’s beauty and physical attractiveness, Jon Snow, once again, appreciates her being maternal and singing to Gilly’s son, but was turned off by Val saying she would kill Princess Shireen:

“I have heard you singing to him.”

“I was singing to myself. Am I to blame if he listens?” A faint smile brushed her lips. “It makes him laugh. Oh, very well. He is a sweet little monster.”

“Monster?”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon VIII

Once outside and well away from the queen’s men, Val gave vent to her wroth. “You lied about her beard. That one has more hair on her chin than I have between my legs. And the daughter … her face …”

“Greyscale.”

“The grey death is what we call it.”

“It is not always mortal in children.”

“North of the Wall it is. Hemlock is a sure cure, but a pillow or a blade will work as well. If I had given birth to that poor child, I would have given her the gift of mercy long ago.”

This was a Val that Jon had never seen before. “Princess Shireen is the queen’s only child.”

“I pity both of them. The child is not clean.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

Wait a minute! Val was “singing to herself” like Jon’s memory of Sansa “singing to herself” while brushing out Lady’s coat???

Where did Jon get this idea of “some willowy creature that only brushes her hair” from???  It could be from his half sister Sansa, a literal princess, now trapped in a tower, that always brushed her hair and even brushed out her direwolf’s fur???

“She had brushed out her long auburn hair until it shone” —Sansa

“Her thick auburn hair had been brushed until it shone.” —Eddard

I often sent away her maid so I could brush her hair myself. —Catelyn

He thought […] Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself. —Jon

And I also suspect that when Jon said this about Val:

Then Ghost emerged from between two trees, with Val beside him.

They look as though they belong together. Val was clad all in white; white woolen breeches tucked into high boots of bleached white leather, white bearskin cloak pinned at the shoulder with a carved weirwood face, white tunic with bone fastenings. Her breath was white as well … but her eyes were blue, her long braid the color of dark honey, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

He was remembering another pretty girl, princess like, next to a direwolf, looking as though they belong together.

A young beautiful girl, that everyone considers a princess, next to a direwolf???

Val is a beautiful young woman, Sansa is a beautiful young maiden.

Val has long blonde hair the color of dark honey which she wears in a braid. Val actually take care of her hair, enough to braid it, like Sansa that always brushes it. And if you google “dark honey” hair color you will find a variety of reddish brown (auburn) and reddish blonde hair colors.

Val has high sharp cheekbones, like Sansa.

Val’s eyes are pale grey or blue.  Again the grey/blue eyes pattern…

Val is slender with a full bosom, like Sansa.

So?

Then Ghost emerged from between two trees, with Val beside him. […] It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself.

Think about it!

* * *

For anyone interested, this is an excerpt from this post.

[janiedean]

do you think grrm/asoiaf endorses incest and what do you think of jon/arya being a romance story in the OG outline and how some people it may be hinting towards jon/dany or jon/sansa

with the premise that if I get discourse on this it's getting immediately deleted and that I'm answering this in extremely objective terms and not wrt my feelings concerning specific ships:

'grrm endorses incest': he has said more than once in public/interviews that he does not and all the incest you see in *asoiaf* in canon is hardly endorsing™ since we're talking about one relationship that is presented from the get-go as unhealthy and that is over and finished on page, so no I don't grrm doesn't

that's also including the targ stuff in general in f&b because while grrm is a lot less hard on targ incest than on the other-specific-incest we're discussing f&b is written like a history book for the very specific reason of having the external pov from which you have to deduce things, it's clearly shown that the continuous incest going on within the family is bad™ and honestly idt that if he doesn't write idk jaehaerys/alysanne as immediately HORRIBLE™ doesn't mean that you can't see that he doesn't go and endorse that irl or that he enjoys the concept or whatever outside 'I am writing a fantasy thing where I incorporated the fact that most european royals married within each other and I want to explore this'

'what do you think of jon/arya being a romance in the og outline': that it was a shit idea but there's a reason why the og outline got scrapped for a good 75% of it and he realized it wasn't a very good idea, also jaime is the villain™ in the og outline and in what we got is half of the crowning achievement romance™ of grrm's dreams so I don't think that what's in the og outline beyond what's actually in the books matters at all

'how some people it may be hinting towards jon/dany or jon/sansa': with the premise that - again - I have absolutely zero horses in this race because as far as I'm concerned the only woman I ship jon with is ygritte (unless you throw gilly and sam both in the middle of it) so like it's all the same to me: - I have no doubt that at this point jon/dany is gonna happen because like... as much as I don't showtruth they went there for two wholeass seasons and there's enough text evidence that it might be a thing so if we say that he took the jon/arya outline thing and put it on dany it's not completely out of nowhere but - like... never mind that imvho jon/dany is not an endgame romance (I think she goes back to essos and he fixes shit/separates the kingdoms again and goes to live with the wildlings when he's done), while they are related, one thing is 'the sister of my long-dead father that I didn't even know was my father until I was 16 and to whom I have no previous relationship and to whose family I feel no previous kinship', one thing is 'my first grade cousin with whom I grew up thinking she was my sister' like sorry but the 'ew they're related' factor here counts in immensely different ways so just that would disqualify jon/sansa immediately because if you grew up with someone thinking they're your sibling that's not gonna stop the moment you find out you're cousins which is btw still incest

also like back to the beginning, in westeros incest is seen as bad - like the only reason targs get away with it is that jaehaerys paid off the entire fucking conclave to make a law saying that incest is bad and unholy and terrible except when targaryens do it because they're above everyone else but everyone else doesn't get that luxury like craster is seen as the literal worst, jc have to hide it because if they got found out they'd be killed for it -, I don't see how this setting means 'the author excuses incest', and the fact that cousin marriage is more accepted doesn't mean that eyebrows aren't raised at it and like it automatically means that then it's somehow more okay, like.... it's not and out of all the options jon/dany is the least charged one in that sense

I don't think 'incest is a thing in these books but the author obviously doesn't endorse it and has obviously clear that he doesn't go for it beyond the exploration of how that would work within the targs historically' is anything that leads to the conclusion 'the main character's endgame love interest will be strictly related to him'

especially when it comes to jon/sansa anyway because I'd again like to reiterate once again that sansa has an endgame romance whose name is either sandor clegane or tyrion lannister and jon isn't even a contender when it comes to people who have a chance in hell of being sansa's endgame LI so honestly I think it's a moot point anyway

also I would like to again point out that fine there's the whole 'incest is a crime for everyone including targaryens' issue but for jon that wouldn't really matter because he never thought of himself as one, the one thing he wanted was being a stark, when he finds out he's targ it won't automatically make him go like OH WELL THEN THAT'S THE HOUSE I OWE MY ALLEGIANCE TO JUST FOR THAT and he won't go like 'ah well I can marry my relatives because I'm a targ who stops me' because he doesn't care for that and he's not going to change his entire value system based on that, and like if he and dany get together and they already know his bg (which... I mean I think there is no sensed way they wouldn't know before meeting given the book timeline) it's going to be in spite of that - like dany probably doesn't gaf about that bc she grew up with viserys who thought they should get married in targ fashion but jon would have an issue or two with that I think which ngl is why I thought no way jon/dany was gonna happen in canon but... i mean if it does now with a lot of conflict on his side I'm not gonna be surprised

tldr: that the jon/arya thing is a blueprint for jon/dany could be a thing but the fact that grrm thrice-removed the level of how strictly they're related to go there says everything there is to say about him realizing it was a shit idea/there was no way it was an endgame, that the jon/arya thing is a blueprint for jon/sansa endgame is not a thing dot because it bases itself on the concept that a) the moment jon finds out he's a targ he stops giving a fuck about everything he's gaf until this point b) that he's sansa's endgame, and considering that sansa's arc is 'I wanted to be a queen and marry a dashing pretty beautiful guy and then I realized that court sucks and pretty guys are fake as fuck so I won't be a queen anymore but I'll have my love story with a guy that everyone sees as monstrous but actually is not because the author really likes beauty and the beast' and jon is ultimately headed for kingship I really doubt they interact as more than 'we didn't care for each other while we were growing up together so now we'll learn to be siblings' so *shrug*

but anyway none of ^^^ means grrm thinks incest should be legal or encouraged or whatever

this stated: idgaf if people ship it in asoiaf any of them as long as they aren't assholes about it but that's valid for every ship under the sun anyway so like this isn't me judging ppl on enjoying incest stuff wrt asoiaf like knock yourself out, and people can ship whatever in whichever way they like (I mean if ppl wanna write however much fic with endgame j*nsa reigning together bc it's what they like good for them), but idt the text supports any incest ship being eventual endgame unless I'm colossally wrong about jondany but idt grrm wants targ restoration monarchy given his politics and the fact that it's present in canon doesn't mean the text supports it or sponsors it nor that grrm has it on top of his fictional preferences in ships list because his fictional preference wrt ships is beauty and the beast and that sure af doesn't exactly fit the bill XD

[fedonciadale]

Beyond set-up for the red wedding and for foreshadowing Manderly’s actions before Jeyne’s wedding to Ramsey, where is the story of the Rat Cook going? Like it’s in Bran’s POV, so shouldn’t it ultimately tie-in to his story? Or is it going to be more something that affects him as he looks through the weir woods (like with Stannis and Rose)? Sorry if this is something that you’re not interested in, but I enjoy your metas and thought that you might have some insight.

(From the same anon with the ask about Bran and “Rat Cook”) - I feel like it’s in the same vein as the other fairy tale references so he is going to somehow bring it to a close or deconstruct/reconstruct it… like invert the story (or is that already Craster?) or show that Old Nan’s stories are all true to some degree…? I just feel like he’s building to something larger. Do you think the fairy/horror stories will be wrapped up together or separate?

Hi there!

I always have the feeling that we can't be satisfied with an interpretation of GRRM unless we decipher it at least three times - Just joking. And tales might be introduced in one PoV but might be relevant to other PoVs and the PoV they were introduced in.

Anyway, the in-world fairy tales and legends are quite interesting and involve huge foreshadowing - as well as the allusions to fairy tales from our world. I just mention the fairy tale of the pig boy, Bearskin, Allerleirauh from Grimm that have parallels to Jonsa and play an important part.

In world the stories of Florian and Jonquil and Aemon and Naerys are huge give aways for Jonsa.

I think the darker tales like the legend of the Night King, the last Hero, the Rat Cook etc. foreshadow important events that are related to the major opponents of the Starks, i.e. Fire (Dany), Ice (the Others) and to a certain degree the Lannisters.

Now Rat Cook was indeed used twice: Red Wedding (the betrayal of guest right) and the Ramsay - Jeyne marriage (the Frey pie). Of course it is twisted, because the Rat Cook is Walder Frey who executes his right for revenge by violating guest right and gets punished for it (although he doesn't know that yet), and the Rat Cook is Lord Manderly who serves pie made from Freys and lets the Freys eat them. There are theories around that the story will come to play a part in Bran's arc. It has been theorized that the paste Bran ate in his last chapter is 'Jojen paste'. That his friend literally gave his life so that Bran can 'ascend' to his magic. This would be the third time the Rat Cook gets a nod. I think this is disgusting but still might be something GRRM would do. I think Bran still has a bit of a dark path in front of him before the disentangles himself from Bloodraven and realizes that he has been played. He will then flee the cave and that is probably the moment when the 'Hold the door' moment happens.

This sort of ties in into an idea we talked about recently when we discussed Bran's arc and his possible election as king in the end: That to become a king that is not creepily omniscient Bran would have to give up at least part of his magic. If he acquired magic via human sacrifice (even if he did not know about it) this would certainly be an incentive to give it up.

I think in the end it will be about responsibility. How to make good what was ill done. How to find a balance again. That to save the world Bran might have to let go of his dream of flying. Old Nan said that the Night King of legends (who is not the same person as on the show) was a Stark. The Last hero who contacts the Children of the Forest and his lone journey to them gives off Bran vibes. So Bran might end up losing all his friends like the Last hero of legend. And he might end up giving up his magic.

I don't know if this is what you mean, when you talk about the stories wrapping up. I think that the 'romantic' tales will wrap up/come together with Jonsa, while the 'horror' tales give us a hint at what will happen with Bran. By the end Jon and Sansa will have re-enacted the romantic tales of their world, of the Grimm fairy tales and of famous other fantasy couples (like Beren and Luthien from Tolkien) as well as some couples from literature as well, because GRRM is just that extra with Jonsa.

Bran will have re-enacted some tropes of the 'horror' legends of his world, but also some of fantasy tropes like 'hidden heir', 'responsible magic users' and others. This is how it will tie up I think.

Thanks for the ask(s).

[bidonica]

I was listening to the latest episode about Asha Greyjoy on the Girls Gone Canon podcast (which I recommend - the podcast in general and their Asha commentary in particular since she’s such a weirdly underdiscussed character imo) and they were discussing the theme of cannibalism, which is emerging in ADWD and will most likely be at the forefront in TWOW; not only we already had the Frey pies, men in Stannis’s troops have started feeding on corpses in order to survive their food shortage right at the onset of the harsh Northern winter; and it’s obvious it’s only going to get worse from here.

Eliana on the podcast made these observations about cannibalism as a wider theme in the series:

If we look at cannibalism more metaphorically and thematically (...) I think we kind of see it arising in Stannis’s story in a few other ways(...), what it means to do something in terms of consumption, not just literally eating another body. And I think there’s something kind of like the concept of sexual cannibalism, which some of you may know if you’re into bugs and shit, like praying mantises do it, red widows, spiders… it’s really common among bugs. The female of the species will mate and then consume the male either before or after sex (...) There’s already a lot of other Freudian readings when it comes to VAGINAS! IT’S THE MOUTH AND IT’S SO HUNGRY! Vagina dentata, right? The admixture, the complication of desire. (...) I think you can see this idea of sexual cannibalism coming through with Stannis and Melisandre as his life force ends up becoming devoured during their copulation in order to create the shadow babies. And then I think there’s another way we can interpret it, in the context of Greek mythology; there’s a famous myth of Cronus, or Saturn depending if you want to be a Roman or not, devouring his own children same as his father did before him (...) and of course many likened Stannis to Agamemnon, because of his impending sacrifice of Shireen.

Which got me thinking about how the recurring theme of incest can be viewed as a form of consumption of your own flesh and blood. The Targaryens practice incest as a way to preserve their connection to dragons, but this behavior also “cannibalizes” their own dynasty because it seems to be behind the stillbirths and mental illness that keep popping up in their history. Of course we could debate at length about which Targaryens were actually “mad”, something that GRRM deliberately plays with but also links explicitly to their inbreeding (thanks for the reference, @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly) - and George also has them marry outside of the family just enough that they don’t find themselves with a bad case of their equivalent to the Habsburg jaw. Also, we have another real life example of the perils of inbreeding among royals with Queen Victoria’s hemophilia, which, in just a few generations, affected royal houses among Europe, killing off male descendants and arguably, in the case of tsarevich Alexei, played a part in the fall of the very institution of the Russian monarchy. I think that, besides the Ptolemy pharaohs, GRRM also had in mind these other real life examples of dynastic inbreeding, and how they played a part in ultimately ending the royal bloodlines they were meant to preserve.

Craster also practices incest as means of survival (and because he’s a disgusting person), raping his own daughters to produce male children to be given to the Others. Even if he doesn’t literally eat his sons he is treating them as meat, and he can be seen as another Cronus parallel; besides, just like Stannis is probably going to do, he subjects his heirs to ritual sacrifice. In Craster’s character incest, cannibalism, and ritual sacrifice overlap in one big ball of horror, but also call back to ancestral practices such as sacrifices to the Old Gods and the brutal, bloody history of the “true North” as opposed to the more civilized version we meet in the beginning through the Starks.

The Lannister incest is the one that apparently fits the least in this framework: the twins are aware that it’s a taboo and sort of keep things on the down low, and their relationship started so early it’s hard for them to rationalize. But it’s also a relationship that engendered so many toxic dynamics we could argue it stunted both twins’ emotional development in different ways. Besides, unless Tyrion or Jaime produce and acknowledge an heir anytime soon, it ended the legitimate Lannister lineage since it was one of the main drivers behind Jaime’s decision to be a kingsguard, and the children he had with Cersei are officially Baratheons.

However, if we look back, Tywin and Joanna were first cousins, and there’s at least one other instance of Lannister/Lannister marriage that we know of - Joanna’s half brother Damon and Ella Lannister, from the Lannisport branch. While these marriages don’t technically have that high of an inbreeding quotient (it’s probably irrelevant in the latter), they express the same tendency of the Targaryens and of the aforementioned real life royals towards marrying in rather than out. In the Lannisters’ case, and especially when it comes to Tywin and his children, it’s also an expression of their self importance; no one is worthy of a Lannister except maybe another Lannister - or a king. Don’t settle for less. Just to be clear: this kind of “family first” worldview is the default for the kind of feudal society asoiaf is set in, and we see it in other noble houses, but when Martin writes it for the Lannisters it’s a bit too much; it’s pathologized, warped. It doesn’t look like a coincidence that they’re the non-Targaryen family who gets the major incest storyline, and their incest is the first fateful domino tile to fall in the chain of events that will bring the continent to war. And this mentality doesn’t seem to have done much to tighten the bonds within the family, where patricide already occurred, a valonqar has been prophesized, and murderous levels of resentment abound. The Lannisters are cannibalizing themselves indeed.

(Oh, it just occurred to me -you know who’s also cannibalizing themselves through family infighting and literal, unwitting consumption of the flesh of their kin? The Freys. And who are two old, sleazy patriarchs who lord over a way too numerous offspring in their castle who you have to pay respect to if you want to proceed forward in your path? Craster and Walder Frey.)

So yeah, George might be kind of fixated on incest as a narrative device, and sometimes even romanticizing it, but I think that even though he presented some functional examples like Jaehaerys and Alysanne, he’s also using it to show that when a community - even the smallest nucleus of it, a family - folds onto itself it will end up consuming itself, exhausting its own resources and making everyone involved miserable, sometimes to the extreme consequences.

[goodqueenaly]

“Your son has no king's blood. Melisandre gains nothing by giving him to the fire. Stannis wants the free folk to fight for him, he will not burn an innocent without good cause. Your boy will be safe. I will find a wet nurse for him and he'll be raised here at Castle Black under my protection. He’ll learn to hunt and ride, to fight with sword and axe and bow. I’ll even see that he is taught to read and write.” Sam would like that. “And when he is old enough, he will learn the truth of who he is. He'll be free to seek you out if that is what he wants.”

“You will make a crow of him.” She wiped at her tears with the back of a small pale hand. “I won’t. I won’t.”

“My lord, my f-f-f-father, Lord Randyll, he, he, he, he, he … the life of a maester is a life of servitude. No son of House Tarly will ever wear a chain. The men of Horn Hill do not bow and scrape to petty lords. Jon, I cannot disobey my father.”

A small moment of similarity between Gilly and Sam in “Jon II” ADWD. Jon has just given them both orders without any semblance of choice, orders which will drive both of them away from the Wall for (what would seem to be, at least) a long time. In both cases, Gilly and Sam resist not only because of their personal antipathy toward their only given options - Gilly obviously doesn’t want to leave her only child to go to what is, for her, a foreign faraway land, and Sam does not look forward to the more macabre aspects of Citadel training - but because of the ideas drilled into them by their abusive fathers. 

In Gilly’s case, she is clearly remembering what she learned at Craster’s hand (and I mean that in a likely literal, physically abusive way as much as a metaphorical). While Mormont considered Craster a “friend of the Watch”, it was clear that Craster despised the “crows” who came to his keep seeking shelter and food. Craster drilled into his daughters and daughter-wives that he and only he kept them safe, and that his “freedom” was preferable to any “slavery” they would find elsewhere; I’m sure that psychological abuse including railing against the “crows” on the Wall, with probable warnings about how untrustworthy the “crows” were and how it would be their deaths to go to the Wall. Now Jon is telling her that her son will live with “crows”, train with “crows”, and even learn to read from “crows”; small wonder that she would see this as “mak[ing] a crow of him”. Jon clearly meant this to be positive - giving her son a better life than he ever could have had at Craster’s, even without the ritual male infanticide - but Gilly is still a young woman who up until very recently was drilled to distrust and fear “crows”, and who would consequently never want her son to follow that path.

In Sam’s case, Randyll Tarly spent years horribly abusing him in an attempt to mold him into what he believed his son and heir should be. When Sam offered himself to go to the Citadel, Randyll didn’t simply refuse - he chained Sam to a wall, by his hands, feet, and neck, for three days to teach him never to raise again what was, in Randyll’s mind, such a foolish, humiliating notion (in a stunt that almost choked Sam to death multiple times).  Raging violent misogynist that he is, a proud representative of the worst aspects of Westeros’ martial aristocracy, Randyll would never consider sending his own firstborn son to an order of, to him, domestic servants. Sam’s words could be, and indeed probably are, ripped straight from Randyll’s mouth: no son of House Tarly can wear a chain, bowing and scraping to petty lords. Sam’s proven his father thoroughly wrong in terms of his self-worth - he was brave enough to kill an Other and defend Gilly and her baby from wights and smart enough to figure out how to avoid Janos Slynt being elected - but the legacy of Randyll’s abuse is still hanging over him in terms of how he views the Citadel.

[megashadowdragon]

coldhands identity is brave danny flint

Could Coldhands be Brave Danny Flint? It sounds crackpot, and very likely is, but the more I thought about it the more it appealed to me. I've done a quick search, one or two people seem to have floated this before but it's never had much in-depth analysis. This is my first meta, so please be gentle and C&C welcome.

The Gender Agenda To start with, I'll start with the elephant in the room - Danny Flint was a girl, Coldhands is male. Or is he? Gilly, Meera, and Bran all refer to him as male, but they have no idea who he is, so would see Night's Watch clothes and assume. He wears a scarf over his face, and while they can see his eyes and that his face is pale, it took Bran's gang a decent amount of time to work out he was a walking corpse, so I'm not sure I trust them to figure out niceties like gender. Leaf's "They killed him long ago" is more of a problem - she's a colleague, she would probably know. My best defence is that maybe Children of the Forest don't do gender in the same way as humans? This feels like a reach, but we have had another magical species with sexual fluidity leading to trouble with pronouns in the series. Otherwise, Leaf tends to hang out in the cave, Coldhands can't get in, maybe they're just not that close. Finally, the main person to ask - Coldhands his or her self. The only other post I could see on reddit about this theory had someone respond with the quote "Once the heart has ceased to beat, a man's blood runs down into his extremities, where it thickens and congeals. His hands and feet swell up and turn as black as pudding. The rest of him becomes as white as milk", but I'd point out this is in third person and a generalization - "a man", not "me, Coldhands, the man".

Okay, now I've convinced everyone my theory is terrible, let's get into the meat of it.

Hands cold as stone This was what got me into this rabbit hole in the first place - House Flint's sigil is "A grey stone hand upon a white inverted pall on paly black and grey". A stone hand would be pretty cold, right? In point of fact, when we first met Coldhands, the final line of the chapter describes "fingers hard as stone." On top of that, the white and black background seems to fit the Night's Watch blacks, pale face, black hands, white snow, etc.

Who the hell else could it be? This has always been the weird thing about Coldhands for me. Honestly, there's a very good chance this is a non mystery mystery, he's a zombie Night's watch ranger riding an elk, do we really need a secret identity? However, "who is Coldhands?" is one of the most commonly asked questions in the fandom, so let's assume it's getting an answer. We know: a) night's watch member b) killed a long time ago, as reckoned by a 200 year old, c) not Benjen. There are essentially 3 historical periods where we know any specifics about the Night's Watch: 1) the long night/age of heroes, 2) Targaryen era, 3) recent history. If we work through these backwards, we can pretty much rule out the recent era for not meeting the criteria of "killed a long time ago". The Targaryen era didn't have much Night's Watch drama, a few kings sent to the wall at Aegon's conquest, Raymun Redbeard's invasion is wall related but the whole point of that story is that the Night's Watch failed to really get involved... the only strong contender from this period is a mysterious magical Targaryen bastard who went to the wall and went missing... but he's the other mysterious good zombie wandering around up north. The long night has a lot of Night's Watch focus, but it was 10,000 years ago. Allowing for this being in-universe exaggeration, it's still ~2,000 years ago, and if Coldhands were that old, I'm not sure he'd be in elk-riding mutineer-killing form, or at least not look passably human to Bran and co. This rules out specific timeline characters, which leaves more folkloric characters like Danny Flint, who isn't associated to any one point in time. There's a song, and she's treated as a well-known tale, which implies a fairly long time, but overall could be whenever. This works for any of the folkloric Night's Watch characters, but the Rat King is already otherwise occupied with a different cannibalistic pseudo immortality, leaving Mad Axe, who does have the massacring fellow brothers down pat, but doesn't feel thematically right to me. This section really grew in the writing, but TL;DR - assuming Coldhands is someone we've heard of before, no specific historical figures seem to match up chronologically, leaving figures from folk tales and songs, which there are only so many of.

Mutineer Massacre For a character we've all obsessed over so much, it's easy to forget how little we've seen of Coldhands. His role in the story has effectively been "transport Sam and Gilly to the wall, transport Bran and co to Bloodraven, massacre the Night's Watch mutineers". Hold up, one of those things is not like the others. During his quest to get Bran to Bloodraven, to awake the messiah and save the world, Coldhands takes a break and makes a detour to kill the Night's Watch Mutineers from Crasters. This is explicitly noted to be something they slow down for, when time is critical. Admittedly, it secures the party some delicious Long Pork when supplies are low, but even in aDwD it seems like there are other ways to get meat than to hunt humans, besides which he kills not one but five mutineers. He claims it is because the mutineers are following them, but Meera points out they've been circling for days - it seems Coldhands deliberately sought the mutineers out. The brutality of the kills also suggests more than utilitarian pragmatism - there are entrails slung through branches and severed heads! All of this to say, Coldhands is deliberately shown as both a member of the Night's Watch, and willing/going out of his way to punish Night's Watch brothers who break their vows and harm their fellow brothers, something Danny Flint might take personally. Basically, it's a classic exploitation movie with an elk-riding zombie as the wronged woman hunting down wrongdoers. Someone call Tarantino to direct this.

A True Night's Watch One of the big themes GRRM loves is the idea that outsiders to an institution can be the truest embodiment of that institution - Dunk and Brienne are the truest Knights, Davos is the truest lord, the Manderlys are the most loyal northerners. Coldhands already seems to tie into this - the Night's Watch are tireless defenders from the Others and their Wights, so ironically the staunchest ranger is undead as well. It would only emphasise this theme if this ultimate Night's Watch ranger was someone who was barred from entry, had to sneak in, and was murdered by their brothers for not belonging. There also seems to be a thematic tie in that Danny Flint had to essentially infiltrate the Night's Watch and keep her cover in hostile terrain, much like Coldhands in the Others controlled north.

Bonding over being murdered by your brothers Coldhands has so far been very much one of Bran's cast, but it's worth noting characters can switch storylines, and we have someone else in the North who can soon relate to being a back-from-the-dead Night's Watchman fighting the Others - I'm hardly the first to note the Coldhands/Jon parallels, but Coldhands being another character who was murdered by the Night's Watch due to their conservatism and hatred of outsiders would add another layer.

Miscellany A couple of quotes I found while researching for this: “Did Mance ever sing of Brave Danny Flint?” “Not as I recall. Who was he?” (ADWD Jon XII) - Tormund and Jon talking, Tormund mistaking Danny Flint for a man, this feels like one of those throw-away lines GRRM likes to include to make a little double meaning once the truth is out, or just seeding the idea of mistaking Danny Flint for a man. “The ranger wore the black of the Night’s Watch, but what if he was not a man at all?" (ADWD Bran I) - again, I could see GRRM giggling as he typed that if this theory were true.

Conclusion Honestly, there is every chance this is absolute nonsense, and I've just lost it waiting for TWoW. I tend to lean towards Coldhands not having a big identity reveal, he's an undead ranger co-opted by Bloodraven and that's enough. However, if Coldhands is to have an identity reveal, I think Danny Flint deserves consideration: there aren't that many viable candidates, her story is emotionally intense enough and has been referred to often enough that a casual fan could be expected to go "oh!" instead of "...let me google that", and it would fit with existing themes of the story. The angle of Jon parallels even gives an opening for the reveal to be natural and facilitate character and thematic arcs, which is what I look for in a theory.

comment on reddit

Yeah, the Flint (of Flint's Finger) sigil literally being a Cold Hand is what sold me on this when I started looking into it. There's also some other intriguing textual stuff about it...

The weird thing about Danny Flint is that she is only mentioned three times in all of ASOIAF. Three! Bran recounts her tale in Bran IV, ASOS; Theon hears Wyman Manderly demand her song in The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD; and Jon discusses her tale with Tormund in Jon XII, ADWD.

This was kind of shocking to me. Danny Flint is a pretty recognizable name to, I’d figure, the majority of attentive readers. I thought she must have been mentioned before the third book, at least, but… nope. Her tale is first introduced to us in Bran IV, ASOS, the Nightfort chapter… Oh, what’s that? Wait, isn’t that… the very same Nightfort chapter where we first hear about Coldhands? (Well, no, actually, he appears at the end of Samwell III before that, but this is the first chapter where he is identified as Coldhands.) Chronologically, Sam meets Coldhands, Bran thinks about Danny Flint, and then Sam introduces Bran to Coldhands, in fairly quick succession.

So it seems GRRM came up with Danny Flint and Coldhands around the exact same time. Interesting. Danny Flint is then not mentioned again until ADWD, when the Coldhands mystery is developed further. Double interesting.

Also, the Bran chapter directly preceding the Nightfort chapter– our first introduction to Danny Flint– is the one where Meera tells him the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree, another tale of a northern warrior woman dressing as a man and hiding her face in service of some greater goal. Stretch? Maybe.

And why would Coldhands' face be covered at all if there WASN'T some big reveal upcoming? What utility would that have? That scarf clearly seems like a setup for SOMETHING. He doesn't need it for warmth. He's likely hiding a face that would make him recognizable to Bran/Meera/Jojen (and the readers), but died long ago... the only way that reveal could work without a ton of laborious exposition is if he took off the scarf and it was obviously a 'female' face, making it obviously Danny. It also seems likely Coldhands will interact with at least Bran and Meera again, both of whom are somewhat connected to Danny Flint’s story– Bran via his love of stories and legends, and Meera via the breaking of gender roles. So there's thematic levels to it as well.

source www . reddit . com/r/asoiaf/comments/llwm8m/coldhands_identity_spoilers_extended/

[fangirlingatstuff]

I dont give a shit about the Targayens, Imma write some whitewalker headcanons

The amount of armor a walker has signifies their rank, the more coverage, the higher rank you are

Their main residence is a big carved out glacier/mountain called The Ridge

Contrary to free folk and westerosi belief, the white walkers dont just want to kill all men and shit, Night King is literally just tired and wants the slavers and nights watch to fuck off

The white walkers are actually pretty intelligent, but most of that intelligence is spent on frat house bickering

They make yo mamma jokes, A LOT

The Craster Sons can tell when another one of Crasters kin are near them, and will not hurt them for the same reason

The Night King is just really tired and really grumpy, and just wants to leave in the cold wasteland in peace, but NOOOOO the humans just had to put up a dumb wall and the nights watch keeps stirring up trouble

When bored some of the walkers will just go bother the wildlings, for funsies

If introduced to it, the walkers would all probably be alcoholics

They can all speak somewhat telepathically, but they have their own language called Skroth

There is one white walker who can speak english, his name is Oskroth

All of them have the potential of learning english except Night King

He’s tried, but his throat just does not want to work that way

They all annoy each other and are just frat boys

A lot of the Crasters talk like hockey players and I guarantee you they invented Westeros hockey because what else are you going to fucking do in the arctic besides that and snowball fights?

There are several gigantic mummified dragons frozen away beyond the wall, and they have TRIED SO HARD to carve and thaw them out, two of them are partially exposed, and if the Night King wasnt so pissed at the moment, he was going to kill Visyrion and experiment with how to take control of a dragon and then do the same back at the ridge

[captainpikeachu]

Bran didn’t just fall out a window and say weird shit

that is not the extent of his story, seriously these kinds of tweets and comments are just really bothering me now with how dismissive and ableist people are getting and it’s just...really really nasty

i get he didn’t get the flashiest storyline or constantly use his magic to murder people and get cool epic moments of revenge

but how did we somehow forget that this little boy who was innocent and just loved to climb lost everything that was his dream? he wanted nothing more than to be a knight of the kingsguard and that dream was stolen from him and he was TEN YEARS OLD and just had to learn to deal with it without any parental help because both of his parents were gone???

this ten year old boy was so sad and depressed that he literally told his brother “I’d rather be dead” because everything that he loved and wanted to be was taken from him???

this ten year old boy who was left behind to take care of a fucking castle of people and essentially rule the North while his brother and mother were gone

this ten year old boy who had to deal with not just losing his father and having no one to go to, but also having to look after his little brother?

and then Theon comes back and takes their home? and Bran has to just watch this happen and yield the castle because it was his responsibility to take care of his people? and he has to watch as Theon beheads Ser Rodrik even as Bran is screaming and begging in the rain for it to stop?

or what about Bran, still a child himself, finding out about the orphans that HE sent to help the farmer is dead because of him? because they were killed since Theon couldn’t find him and Rickon?

or Bran losing Maester Luwin and having to see his home burned and then having to go on the run and not just think about himself but also how to look after his little brother?

why is it we refuse to think about how a boy had to step up and be the adult, to have to think about responsibilities that should never even be his? did we forget that Bran had to make the choice to send Rickon to the Umbers because he couldn’t just assume that Castle Black was safe if he’d just seen Jon trying to escape from wildlings?

and how many times along the way was Bran tested to turn back yet he doesn’t? how they got trapped at Craster’s with the mutineers and he had to kill Locke to escape? or he could have run to Jon but he knew that he had to find the Three Eyed Raven and he literally gave up safety to go into the unknown?

how many lives were placed in a young boy’s hands and he had to bear their loss but still forge forward? 

he never asked for this destiny to be thrust upon him and yet when it did, he bears the weight of it all and did what he was suppose to do even when it was hard

Bran Stark gave up his mind and his identity because he knew he had to be ready when the Night King comes, he had to be ready to protect the world

Bran Stark gave up himself and “died in that cave” so that the world could be saved

but okay sure, he’s apparently just useless, lazy, pointless, not worthy, doesn’t have a great story, just fell out of a window and says weird shit

OR maybe y’all just weren’t paying attention

[cbrownjc]

Jon and Daenerys: A Journey to the Lands of Always Winter (Theory)

So, someone on twitter gave me a heads up to an official artwork posted on the official Game of Thrones twitter account:

A few days before this, on my twitter account, I noticed that the set we see Emilia Clarke on in the Behind the Scenes video that was posted on the official YouTube channel for Game of Thrones has some stairs behind her that have a similar blue glow to them that we see when one of the White Walkers travels with the last of Craster’s sons Beyond the Wall to the Lands of Always Winter in the Season 4, Episode 4 episode “Oathkeeper”:

Also, while filming in Iceland, there are two quick moments you can see with Emilia where she is wearing what looks to be the same outfit she is wearing in the screenshot above, or very close to it: 

Also someone on twitter posted this short clip showing Emilia filming something wearing this same outfit while in Iceland. Meaning there was clearly more than the dragon riding filmed in Iceland. 

In Season 4, the Lands of Always Winter were shot on a green screen in a parking lot. However, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have taken the time, while in Iceland, to film some exteriors in a real winter and snow setting that they could likely enhance in post with some CGI and lighting effects. 

And just to keep some people from panicking no, this does NOT mean either Jon or Dany will become either the Night King or the Night Queen. Them going to the Lands of Always Winter would/will have nothing to do with that.  

It's just, since Tolkien really, High Fantasy tends to always have the hero(es) having to journey into some Heart of Darkness type place to destroy something. This is going to be Jon and Dany’s “Frodo and Sam heading into Mount Doom/The Crack of Doom” story plot and moment IMO. Where the fate of the world and the true defeat of the Night King/White Walkers/Army of the Dead will likely rest with the two of them alone. 

Now, in discussing this on twitter with a few people, one person noted to me that this whole thing might likely be similar to Dany having to journey into the House of the Undying, which she had to do alone. Which is something I also feel is very possible here. I can see it very much being Jon and Dany go there together but, at some point while there, Jon has to remain behind while Dany has to go - to misquote C. S. Lewis a bit from the Chronicles of Narnia - “further up and further in.” 

Now, what Dany might have to do while there, I can only guess. Again, I turn to twitter where the same person has suggested - and this is straight-up book lore we’re talking about here - Dany might have to destroy the rotting blue heart she saw in her vision while in the House of the Undying in the books (Daenerys IV, ACOK):

A long stone table filled this room. Above it floated a human heart, swollen and blue with corruption, yet still alive. It beat, a deep ponderous throb of sound, and each pulse sent out a wash of indigo light. The figures around the table were no more than blue shadows. As Dany walked to the empty chair at the foot of the table, they did not stir, nor speak, nor turn to face her. There was no sound but the slow, deep beat of the rotting heart. 

It may be that Daenerys consuming that horse heart - red with blood - in Book 1/Season 1 was actually foreshadowing to what she’ll have to do in the final book/season, meaning she might actually have to consume a cold blue heart. That cold blue heart actually likely being the literal Heart of Winter a place mentioned/a thing Bran glimpses in the books (Bran III, AGOT): 

North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

And, given that she was pregnant when she consumed that horse heart, I wouldn’t be surprised if she is similarly pregnant if THIS is what she has to do there.

And it would also go into explaining why HBO chose to highlight this moment for Dany in there #ForTheThrone video postings a few months ago: 

If Season 8 will have many call backs and echos to Season 1, then this moment might be one of the many we see again, with greater context and consequence this time.

[oadara]

Game of Thrones Season 8 Predictions

We are less than a week away from the premiere of season 8 of Game of Thrones and with that in mind I thought I’d post my predictions for the season and the conclusion of the series. Most of these predictions are things I’ve considered for some time now, although, there are some new predictions here as well. So, without further ado here are my predictions for season 8.

1. It’s been my belief for some time now that Dany would survive the series and I believe that Jon will also survive the series along with her. There are a couple of other predictions that are tied to their survival. For example, Dany has been talking about “breaking the wheel” since season 5 and I think this has multiple meanings. First, I think this might imply that Dany and Jon will find a way to destroy the Night King once and for all, so that other generations won’t have to deal with the same problem. Second, will be the restructuring of governance in Westeros. I believe that Dany will destroy the Iron Throne and will create a sort of constitutional monarchy, where there will be a ruling council governing along side the monarchy. More checks and balances than there’s ever been in Westeros.

Side note, I’ve been talking with friends and I can see Jon and Dany leaving after they’ve established the new governing structure. This would be my dream ending for them. Although, I’ve been reticent to predict it because Jon and Dany are the only ones with leadership and ruling experience that will be left but if an infrastructure is created than them leaving would be so detrimental to the new government.

2. There's going to be a real fracturing of relationships between the main characters. Interviews by both Maisie Williams and John Bradly have given me the impression that Jon's relationship with Arya and Sam will not be what it once was.

I think that Arya might side with Sansa over the Cersei affair and this will come at a really bad time for Jon when he's feeling attacked by all sides, and although it probably won’t be intentional on Arya’s part, this might wound Jon deeply. ( I don’t think that Arya would do this on purpose, she might believe that Jon doesn’t understand what a huge threat Cersei s and might be trying to get him to see the problem. But it will come at the wrong time.)

As for Sam, Bradly said that he has manipulated Jon in the past, I think Sam might try to do the same this time, but it'll backfire, and it'll create a rift between Jon and Sam.

The fracturing of these relationship and others are part of the bittersweet ending GRRM has been talking about. It's not just death and destruction it's the erosion of relationships and the inability to go back to how things used to be. So, while Jon may forgive Sam and get over Arya siding with Sansa, their relationships will never be the same. 

This makes me particularly sad because I was really looking forward to seeing these relationships in the upcoming season, especially Jon and Arya, but the more I think about it the more sense it makes that after everything they’ve been through that things would be the same as they once were. 3. I think we’ll see a lot of conflict among all these allies. We all expect the North to be weary of Dany, at best, and as we saw from Sansa demeanor during the promo she does not seem happy that Dany is in Winterfell. @cbrownjc recently posted an interview from GRRM where he talks about how he doesn’t like the whole "good guys vs bad guys" or "the good guys coming together to defeat the bad guys.”

So, having that antagonism in Winterfell is in keeping with how GRRM envisioned allies would behave. Because the truth is that everyone at Winterfell, except for Bran and Sam, is ignorant about the real thread that is heading their way. In reality they are all still focused on the game of thrones and this will be detrimental to them, it’ll probably be what leads to the fall of Winterfell. After that, I think most will understand the real thread and focus more or less on it but there very well might be lords who just want to save their own skin and so will have no interest in defending Westeros from the thread. They’ll take whatever men they have and will go hide in their keeps.

4. Having to deal with all these conflicting interests is really going to push Jon and Dany towards each other. All the obstacles they will face throughout season 8 will serve to cement their connection to one another. We might see some brief distancing between the two while they come to terms with the news of Jon’s parentage, but it won’t last long and once they come together they’ll be unbreakable. 5. All the Lannisters are going to die. Tyrion is probably going to betray Dany, we never got to see what he talked about with Cersei in season 7 and it very well might be something that could be considered a betrayal of Dany.

There were also other strong hints in S7 that he would betray Dany. The thing is, that literally, everyone who has ever betrayed Dany is dead, except for Jorah, who she forgave. This does not bode well for Tyrion or Cersei. Also, Tyrion inherited Tywin's soundtrack theme when he killed him, do you know what Tywin's theme was based on? The Rains of Castamere. Another clue from the books Cersei V, AFFC: "No, Your Grace. At the end a dragon hatches from an egg and devours all of the lions."

6. The Valyrian steel dagger that Bran gave to Arya will play an important role, perhaps even be used to finally destroy the Night King.

The dagger was quite prominent throughout season 7 including making an appearance in one of the texts Sam was reading at the Citadel, perhaps it’s even one of the texts he brought along with him to Winterfell. We are clearly meant to see this as an important object.

Going off this I believe that Arya’s training as a Faceless Men is important to the endgame. I don’t think she went through that training just to get revenge. The Faceless Men worship the gods of death and the Night King has been described as Death incarnate, so there very well could be a connection there. If we take GRRM at his word and we won’t see the typical fantasy trope of the good guys coming together to destroy the evil monster, then the other very typical fantasy trope of the hero battling the monster in a sword fight might not be the route that GRRM goes in. It might very well be that in order to destroy the Night King characters will have to work in unison to do whatever needs to be done to destroy him.

I don’t know how one destroys the Night King but perhaps it has something to do or it’s tied to the shard of dragonglass that was placed in the Night King heat by the Children of the Forest.  

7. The “fire to love” from Dany’s HOTU prophecy will make an appearance. I believe that Dany will light one more fire before the series is over. We were told that there would be many callbacks to season 1 and I think we’ll have a parallel scene to the one from Drogo’s pyre happening towards the end of season 8. This scene could be tied to the birth of Jon and Dany’s child or it could be tied to the destruction of the Night King, I’m not really sure what will be the purpose of the fire.

8. I think the Night King might be after Jon and Dany's baby. He's had multiple opportunities to kill Jon and an opportunity to kill Dany and he killed neither. The reasons behind why Craster sacrificed his sons and why the Night King needed those sacrifices have yet to be answered. Additionally, we had an entire scene of the Night King turning one of Craster’s sons into a Wight, which I believe points to the importance of this. What I believe might be the reason for this can be read here: Interpretation of Prophecy in ASOIAF/GOT

9. All the dragons are going to die but there might be dragon eggs left behind.

This is it, for now, I might add more to this later.