#didnt type this with my brain typed it with something far more primal and honest like my dick

[vivacissimx]

Like thematically the whole is Jon a Stark or a Targaryen or is Theon a Greyjoy or a Stark or Tyrion/Cersei/Jaime is truly Tywin's kid discourse is so misplaced. If it's meaningful to people personally then great but that's not my point. The fucking fundamental question of belonging is "complicated" by the inheritance of a legacy but it isn't answered by it! The question "who am I" originates in the family home because that's ground zero. It's training wheels. It's the point of departure.

The legacy from being born into a noble family is like. Getting $200 at the beginning of monopoly. That's where basic sense of self is fostered and it informs identity but it doesn't define it. It's in how Theon goes from telling Catelyn "my House owes yours a great debt" (performance within the status quo) to "this was not the Pyke he remembered. Or did he remember?" (incongruency between self vs. true perception) to "two sons of Eddard Stark to pay for Rodrik and Maron" (futile attempts to reconcile) to "Theon wondered what that would be like, to have a home" (acceptance that legacy must be of your own making). Tyrion is another incredible example because there's a marked tension between him being a Lannister vs. being Tywin's son and it's the latter that both defines & redefines the former

fuck it mask off I think fandom cares wayyy too much about asoiaf characters paying for and/or embodying the legacy of their parents. They're all going to have imperfect burdens on their shoulders but that isn't predetermining. Nobody is going to resolve the violence of their ancestor's existence, as much as nobody can avoid the consequences of their parent's choices, because that's an impossible desire! They're supposed to struggle, reject, return, internalize, fuck up in similar yet entirely different ways. They're not supposed to fix the past, that's ridiculous! Like why is Samwell Tarly the polar opposite of Randyll Tarly? Why did Oberyn die trying to avenge Elia? Why did Euron win the kingsmoot when all his promises were balls to the walls deranged? The answers are obvious and also all the same.

Anyways legacies exist and are important but just like prophecies they're of human making, with all the convolution and conflict that implies. As readers we have to at least act like these characters have free will because their choices should matter, even if/when they're backed against a brick wall.