#fire and blood sources

[horizon-verizon]

I hate how Rhaenyra is being written. In F&B, her place as the protagonist is taken by Daemon thanks to GRRM’s fascination with him.

During the war, Daemon:

Advised the Black Council to send envoys to the Great Houses that hadn’t declared for Aegon, which helped get the Arryns and Starks on their side.

Captured Harrenhal without bloodshed with his dragon, allowing the Riverlanders to majority declare for Rhaenyra.

Led “a strong force” of Riverlanders to capture the last big Green supporting Castle, Stone Hedge.

Hired his mistress to kill one of Aegon’s children, resulting in his mother’s insanity and removing her as a dragonrider/voice of reason/even ability to escape.

Was the principal factor for the fall of King’s Landing for the Blacks. He led the Gold Cloaks decades before which inspired them so much they killed Alicent’s brother and turned the city over to Daemon.

Refused to obey Rhaenyra when she demanded Nettles be killed under guest right, allowing her to escape.

Waited 2 weeks for Aemond to appear at Harrenhal; succeeded in killing him by driving Dark Sister into his blind eye, as well as the biggest dragon Vhagar. His body was never found, so it’s still speculated he lived to be with Nettles.

Meanwhile, Rhaenyra:

Sent Knights Inquisitor to pursue those who let Aegon II escape the capital, and apparently the spikes on the gates started to be filled with more fresh heads each day.

Levied higher taxes on the peasants each day, turning them against her, especially when she planned lavish celebration to mark Joffrey as heir to the Iron Throne.

After the Two Betrayers burned Tumbleton, irrationally decided that the other two loyal dragonseeds were also going to betray her, so sent warrants for both their deaths. She even tortured her former father-in-law Corlys Velaryon because he’d helped Addam escape, making him defect to the Greens. Her warrant for Nettles’ death under guest right (a sacred custom) led both Lord Mooton and her husband chief supporter to turn on her as well.

Overthrown by the smallfolk and forced to fled King’s Landing after the Storming of the Dragonpit to Dragonstone.

Was betrayed at Dragonstone by a senior member of her garrison, her remaining knights killed. Eventually, Aegon fed her to his dragon Sunfyre, who ate her in 6 bites in front of her 10 years old son.

Side by side like this, there’s no comparison. Daemon despite being characterized as impulsive and ruthless, was able to win 3 victories with relatively little bloodshed, and gets a heroic and epic death (and he might still be alive!), killing a legendary dragon and the biggest threat to the Seven Kingdoms, saving the Riverlands from Aemond’s tyranny and ending his reign of terror, but abandoning the Black cause to save an innocent teenage girl. Meanwhile, Rhaenyra orders executions and high taxes and tortures, turns her biggest allies against her, is chased out of the city in 6 months, gets betrayed and eaten by a dragon (she’s definitely dead, since hundreds of people saw it). She doesn’t get a single success of her own (even Aegon managed that in getting Dragonstone to defect), while he gets several despite having someone kill a child. Caraxes is an “old, fast, clever dragon” who helps win Harrenhal without a fight and kill Vhagar, while Syrax is a lazy dragon who mainly exists to get Joffrey killed and then die in the dragonpit (even Sunfyre is better than her, essentially coming to Aegon’s rescue). It’s not necessarily that Rhaenyra’s cause fell apart when Daemon abandoned her (though considering how he’s made so epic it’s a blow), it’s that her irrational, tyrannical actions caused nearly everyone to abandon her. If she hadn’t issued the warrant for Addam and Nettles’ deaths based on nothing but paranoia, then Daemon and Corlys wouldn’t have betrayed her, and considering the Dragonpit would’ve still happened, she’d at least have 3 dragonriders plus the wealth/loyalty of Driftmark on her side. Daemon gets introduced as “made of lightness and darkness in equal parts” meanwhile Rhaenyra is written as one-sidedly incompetent and tyrannical (to the point that even Aegon outshines her sometimes, despite him also being astonishingly incompetent and psychotic). There’s no sense of balance to her, she does basically nothing but the wrong political moves, when she’s supposed to be the protagonist of this story.

[*EDITS* are dated in various posts of post]

"no sense of balance", this is a great criticism of bk!Rhaenyra, or rather the writing for her. finitefall wrote something about Rhaenyra's tyranny HERE, Watsonianly and Doylistically. But my answer will be long and maybe a tedious answer to you so ignore it when it gets dumb, anon. I'm shooting from the dome. There's no analysis happening in this post.

Essentially/To Summarize:

A)

Actually, Aegon was not as strategic as you think. No, he did not plan the Dragonstone fall or deliberate with anyone on how to seize it. that was done for him as much as Daemon taking Harrenhal for Rhaenyra was. And Rhaenyra had a set of circumstances that no other Targ monarch has had to face, not even Jaehaerys.

B)

However!!!! I have out of text v in-text critiques. Basically, as a Doylist argument, yeah I agree. In-text and if we take the story as is? I think it's to pull the these sides into the despair of war and highlight the irresponsibility of it falling here in the first place. Wars must be done for a good reason, not because you killed your sister's son and usurped her for power. Or that you pull your families into a war where they'll die and the realm will be plunged in with you. Yes, HotD had something to the whole "both sides", but not to the extent that they make it: why canon!Rhaenrya wars doesn't matter at all.

And GRRM could have done the above AND emphasize that this never should have happened if not by misogyny without falling back on sexist tropes himself. Which is why this isn't a feminist tale; not because Rhaenyra herself is or should be a feminist (that's impossible) NOR because Fire and Blood was mean to be a "anti-female ruler" sort of thing and this any events where Rhaenrya did ride on Syrax burning people or strategizing and working through her pain was deliberately left out (how can you hide that fact that Rhaenyra would have done the dragon burning at least?! Survivors are also giving testimony! By that argument, we can say it wasn't Baela who burned Aegon, it was some male dragonseed. Nah.)

It's not a feminist tale or even much of a pro woman one because GRRM had so many opportunities to showcase a woman actively participate in a war (in 2 different ways without her being a swordswoman or something like that: flaming bitches OR/AND strategy/tactics/logistics) she was using to reclaim her authority and position and power WHILE showing how Gyldayn's book tries to make her out to be incompetent or evil *[6/1/24]*(and yes real histiographies or versions have both recorded great things women have achieved as they also brought both unsubtle and subtle bad-faith criticisms for those same actions [post from poorshadowspaintedqueens])*[6/1/24], END*…but didn't.

*[11/26/24]* And there's something to that; kings and rulers in general -- after maybe the 14th - 16th centuries, and even then, eh -- were largely both advised and usually to not directly go to battle or fight themselves. They let their commanders and their commanders' soldiers and peons do that, for obvious reasons.

Rhaenyra, also, canonically does delegate when she needed to--issue here people love to bring up is whether the stuff she planned out or wanted done not panning out well for her were bc:

her fault due to lack of intelligence or privileged "laziness"

not her fault by lack of time or space to plan/her kids' dying having a huge mental toll on her impairing her ability to think more on what she had to do so that she ws relgated to making the simplest delegatory decisions

The issue here and that I think you bring up is that we're not even given one major thing that came from Rhaenyra herself or Rhaenyra was inspired to do that also well for her. *[11/26/24], END*

You can still tell the tale of how she became too paranoid and make a point of how the sexist writers saw this as female weakness by forcing them to record major events where she didn't do that but they had to record that anyway because it was so impactful on scale or effect. You can still make us witness her decline at her own hands or have her sons' deaths, one by one, affect her responses to specific events in the war. Make it so that the people around her were being shady and that's what encourages her paranoia to strengthen, that would be better. Make some sort of misunderstanding situation happen with most/if not all her supporters. Make Celtigar or Corlys do some questionable stuff or suspicious stuff (or seem like it, we don't know who's in the shadows trying to divide the blacks after all…) so she reasonably starts to suspect them and lose her trust in them, these men she has to sort of depend on to lead her armies and naval support and direct her funds, and then have some green strike in the moment of unpreparedness. Something!

Instead, canon!Rhaenyra's mental decline is too caricaturistic. *[6/1/24]*There are also some tiny saving graces (listed below, way below), but again, TINY.*[6/1/24], END*

I imagine that this is all the motive for why you and some people might prefer show!Rhaenyra and her going to participate directly in the war as we've been clued on. I'll first say that I get why people do for S2 Rhaenyra...not so much S1 her. HERE is why I prefer bkRhaenyra before Rhaenyra-w-a-Sword pooped up AND summarizing, bc the writing for her in the show is still bad and sexist, but worse because it denies the neutral/good parts of bk!Rhaenyra.

Still, Branwynhalfwitch of Twitter explains it better (S2 Rhaenyra, anticipation).

And your ask reminds me of this ASK/POST about the same issues with Rhaenyra's writing. That anon said what you describe:

I don’t get why Martin uses a mother’s grief so often as a convenient plot device to force passivity, silence and absence on his female characters to fit the requirements of the plot, why it’s always the women who break down, rend their garments and retreat from public life, whereas men react to similar tragedies with anger, pursuit of vengeance and singular political focus.

You:

It’s not necessarily that Rhaenyra’s cause fell apart when Daemon abandoned her (though considering how he’s made so epic it’s a blow), it’s that her irrational, tyrannical actions caused nearly everyone to abandon her. If she hadn’t issued the warrant for Addam and Nettles’ deaths based on nothing but paranoia, then Daemon and Corlys wouldn’t have betrayed her, and considering the Dragonpit would’ve still happened, she’d at least have 3 dragonriders plus the wealth/loyalty of Driftmark on her side. Daemon gets introduced as “made of lightness and darkness in equal parts” meanwhile Rhaenyra is written as one-sidedly incompetent and tyrannical (to the point that even Aegon outshines her sometimes, despite him also being astonishingly incompetent and psychotic). There’s no sense of balance to her, she does basically nothing but the wrong political moves, when she’s supposed to be the protagonist of this story. Rhaenyra is written as one-sidedly incompetent and tyrannical (to the point that even Aegon outshines her sometimes, despite him also being astonishingly incompetent and psychotic.

You're right, it's very Daemon-forward. Don't get me wrong, I see his value for Rhaenyra, but if you're going to write about a woman...write about her and don't let her fall completely to the interpretations of the writers against her when everyone else gets more story than her in her own war. IF you're going to make it about her trying to reclaim her birthright, make her decline much more organic, the pressure on her mind must be more gradual and sensical, and not immediately make her fold under pressure or death of sons. Because yes, mothers/women can think through their pain as Daemon did. Like in that other ask I likened your ask to, there are legends of women like that Sforza woman and Olga of Kiev putting their kids in safer but still active positions to participate in war so they them selves can then take over the war proceedings as unofficial head. Rhaenyra is the actual head of her side, with Daemon as her commander on the ground...so let her do something and colloborate! (By legend/history, Olga had her son throw a spear to signal the beginning of a war she wanted to wage, bc only the male monarch could to officially begin a war). Yeah-ish, not every woman, "realistically", can do something like that but this is fiction and again, in the story about a woman trying to take back her power through a war...do not undermine that point of her trying to defend herself by making her not defend herself, only to drive how wrong it was to usurp her through how her kids live with trauma the rest of their lives and "make up" for it by having the Targs descend from her. There's a difference b/t a woman herself gaining wins/trying her best for herself and her propagating "winners" eventually. (Talking about Aegon V and Dany mostly).

It strengthens the impression of high femme-in-presenting people unable to do the "hard"/big man stuff. It solidifies the whole medieval "women can't do war, that's why they aren't leaders" even as you try to say that Rhaenyra's grief this, Rhaenyra's miscarriage that, bc you're clearly creating reasons for why she will sit out when you do have the option of not doing so, as a writer.

It'd have been more meaningful to have Rhaenyra flout that medieval binarism by at least doing logistics or tactical stuff: oh, she may not be a warrior, but she impacts their moves by reviewing the battlefield or thinking up ways to replenish supplies for their armies or ways to infiltrate this castle and that castle, etc.

And have her burn a few soldiers, come in and do a "save the day" in that battle without necessarily having her swing a sword. She already sort of does flout the binary a little by being a dragonriding princess, in the Andal ideology of masc vs femme---like Branwynhalfwitch of Twitter says, lean on that fact that she is a dragonrider!

Why all this hype about her being the youngest rider to have bonded with a dragon if you're not going to allow her to really use said dragon to reestablish her political power?

Out-of-text: Lately I've gotten more frustrated by a lot of this. Yeah...I know I said once or twice that we as the readers, can still draw significance in how Rhaenyra's supposed mediocrity vs Aegon's craziness shows ever more the point of how sexism makes a mid/good woman undeserving in the face of any mid/evil/incompetent man but GRRM not giving Rhaenyra at least one self-generated strategy plan is more than annoying. It helps to make more substantial this "rational man" v "irrational woman" trope we're all done with because it make women way too passive in a story that's supposed to be their own. She is still the protagonist, just a not-well written one.

A better female character GRRM wrote in F&B is either Rhaena (Dreamfyre's rider, daughter of Queen Alyssa Velaryon and Aenys I) and perhaps Queen Alyssa Velaryon. Maybe Alysanne. The best is Rhaena, though. I wrote at least two posts back to back defending her AND made a 3 "volume" maybe 20 video series on TikTok...this girl is my babe.

I resent GRRM for the circle of "reasoning" I'm about to put you through.

Like I mention below abt Aegon at Dragonstone, Aegon "outshines" her in more crazy than genius or rational-ness. He actually never acts rationally. Like at all. So ironically, we got them similar in that aspect. Aegon was also, unlike Daemon, separated his whole life from that. Aegon is not and was never known for being the swordsguy/warrior his brother was. He was mentally and physically unprepared for war.

I believe GRRM's intent was to have Rhaenyra--who actually ruled Dragonstone for years and sat at council with Viserys and his councilmen for years listening and maybe giving suggestions/learning-- still was so separated from the face of violence and death to those closest to her, that she "lost" her will to meet her odds for a time when her Luke died. Why not Visenya? She lost not one but two, ad so she breaks down. But that's so...flaccid(?) to me, too. It's like he's saying that she "lost" herself or some faith there. Paralyzed by the realities of war and choosing to go to war. So both her and Aegon had been living in the lap of aristocratic wealth it seems, but then it also seems like Rhaenrya had a leg up on Aegon by having been an active ruler on Dragonstone....but then he doesn't take advantage of that one element of potential for Rhaenyra, that one advantage...why? Perhaps someone better at this can explain, I'm tearing my hair out!

By contrast, Daemon had experience and lived in with the possibility of his loved ones dying AND went to war in the Stepstones for years.

The arguments for why Rhaenyra's "deserving" to rule being relegated to how incompetently she acts in the war--like I've said in other posts--gets easily confused for she must actively fight in battle to be considered a good leader...which is exactly the sort of medieval thinking that argued femininity is itself an anthesis to war-faring, militancy, and leading; and we modern Americans and other Western nations don't even practice for leaders. Our president doesn't go travel to fight beside the troops, not even in airplanes. Should they start? That's a good question.

Anyway, I get reluctant to question GRRM's thinking here just bc it's so...dumb?

At the same time, I also truly think that Rhaenyra's "arc" and decline into paranoia does have a potentially interesting journey and that it began with her rivalry with Alicent, from the age of at least 12 if not when Aegon is born which when she is 9-10. What effect would Alicent's turning the court against her and trying to mentally tear her down have on a child growing up expected to also have to be queen? How did that look and turn into how she interacted with the men in her life--father, uncle, brothers, husbands....and the women/girls in her retinue, how did she really feel about them and why? We know the women were loyal more or less. How susceptible did her childhood make her to manipulation from men, where/when/with who did she draw lines/why? It's that GRRM also didn't get into how Rhaenyra may have developed an ever-present insecurity alongside and motivating her need to stand up for herself that grew and worsened with the first few disasters of the war...BUT HE FUCKING WASTED IT!!!

Yes, this is a history book with unreliable sources determined to paint female ruler=bad for stability, but they'd be forced or compelled to at least write a few achievements or two. If you're so attached to this concept and refuse to divulge this girls' thoughts through a fucking letter or journal entry or excerpts of such or something of reflection and thoughts of the moment that reveal character like with Daemon and Otto's letters in the Rouge Prince AND one, just ONE tactic she made up on her own during the war...preferably two. I wouldn't remove her grief and the paranoia entirely. (And I'm not necessarily talking altruistic; Rhaenyra is not and never was that. Just bc you maybe a little clever, doesn't mean you're nice or compassionate.)...You may question, why not Rhaena BB then, instead of Rhaenyra? Well, tbh I much prefer if we somehow got this for every single Targ, attached to every history book, alongside how the maesters interpreted those writings so we got meta-on-meta. Its just richer that way, more engaging. And each character would have still given a voice...after all why describe Daemon's actions in such unrealistic detail if you're goin that far? But alas. Maybe it's a bad or even worse idea, but I'm spitballing.

(Ironically, a lot like how HotD does with some of their own changes or tweaks, like Helaena being a dreamer, which makes me want to compare the two)

Levied higher taxes on the peasants each day, turning them against her, especially when she planned lavish celebration to mark Joffrey as heir to the Iron Throne.

Every bullet point aside from the Nettles one are things I don't really begrudge Rhaenyra for, but I do question why GRRM really made her so sheltered(?) isn't the right word but he made her not try. And with each point, why he decided to give her so much at once but not come up with one good plan that soiled anyway? Or is that sexist? Again, she ruled Dragonstone and sat at council for years....where's all that acumen and experience now?

I honestly don't know what I would have done to replenish the treasury after my wicked half brother and his cronies stole it without putting taxes on people if I have been born high classed. I wouldn't execute people at such alarming rates and I think I'd have a smaller investiture ceremony for my "Joffrey". But I don't know what I'd do. Can't go to the Triarchy bec they just killed one of my kids (Jace), wouldn't trust me, and don't really exist as a unified until anymore, less interested in Westerosi affairs after that. The Hightower armies are in the Reach and parts of the riverlands preventing aid from coming in. Cregan Stark is not due until my own death. So I have but my own funds from Dragonstone and my allies' funds. And you can't demand they fork over $ or you risk losing more allies that way.

I suppose that was what GRRM's job was.

Some posts I wrote about this problem, Watsonianly, so don't come for me:

Basically, GRRM also maybe trying to make her one tragic flaw her need to self determing in the face of people acting/telling her she doesn't deserve power bc she is female.

Excerpt:

Doylistically, Rhaenyra's lack of "focus" (not to be that Try Guy) on what would happen after Viserys died can be attributed to GRRM just wanting her to be at a huge disadvantage at the beginning of the war, for that effect of off-kilterness and foreshadowing things never being the same again after 10 years of peace and presumed happiness with Daemon and her kids. However, writing this error -- without providing any sort of other reason other than she made Dragonstone her home -- does still belies her intelligence, or at least sacrifices that for that effect described. Because she had 10 or so years to contemplate the aftermath of her father's death. *EDIT (8/21/23) *And perhaps he did that on purpose to highlight how misogyny doesn't care what kind of person a woman is so much as it tries to reshape her into an evil being needing destroying so she could become the reason why women, in general, shouldn't rule and "disturb" the "natural" order of male rule. *END OF EDIT*

Others:

Some other saving graces:

A) *[6/1/24]*

Rosby and Stokeworth was an issue that I don't think that most women in Rhaenyra's shoes (from this world) could have have avoided without losing important things. It's a thing that reflects what real life Queen regnants also had to sometimes deal with when persuading men who lead their various martial units, provided supplies, aided in coups [Catherine the Great], etc. Against the concerted efforts of several camps (men and the women who lead armies on behalf of close male relatives) to prevent a woman from claiming power in her own right, the same power-claiming woman needs more than herself and a few other relatives to assure she gets the throne/seat/privilege, etc. Corlys is a sign of that very thing--he twice tells Rhaenrya that if she were to go by Daemon's suggestions of giving Ulf & Hugh any dead noble's (rightfully executed or not) past holdings and titles, the other lords wouldn't likely stand for it:

("Rhaenyra Triumphant") -- First Incident (Not Rosby & Stokeworth)

("Rhaenyra Triumphant") -- Second Incident (Rosby & Stokeworth)

Corlys held her naval support. And while yes for the sake pf setting a precedent of girls becoming lady regnants of houses or being considered as possible, more viable heirs, Rhaenyra ALSO has to measure if she can keep those supporting her to destroy the obstacles in her way so she can ascend and set that prime precedent of female rule. She can't do that if she doesn't win.

If she chose to have these girls become the ladies of their houses, it could have alienated some of the lords she needed to stick with her and support her during an ongoing war. With Daeron-the Hightowers and their army doing well against their own soldiers outside of the city. And she denied Ulf and Hugh the Baratheon/Lannister holdings (correctly) in the next black council when they deliberated how to deal with her brothers, Alicent & Helaena, and those who helped the greens usurp her. She measured the high risks and decided it was way too big in lieu of her other circumstances. (We don't get how she herself felt about it, bc no letters, journal entries, self-reminders, no notes...)

The bulk of her argument for being queen was that the past King/monarch chose her, not that her womanness made her a needed ruler. This is our/the reader's argument. What about the person who must do the actual thing of becoming the precedent, though? There are still material steps to be made towards that. While I would love to see a woman choose to take on that risk, I understand it as the risk it is, what world she grew up in, her limitations, etc.

As Rhaena the Black Bride/Dreamfyre's rider could have been much "nicer" to her kids, she wasn't because of extentuating circumstances--where her own family isolated her despite how they essentially made sure she herself couldn't ascend, how she already proved her loyalties, how she was abandoned by her mother, and how she endured Maegor raping her. Rhaena, who also faced patriarchal violence and is blamed for not "rising above it" by fans. Rhaena is better written--her psychological distress much more comes across as organic bc: the distress does that stop her from seeking and achieving revenge against Androw Farman and even Maegor in various ways and levels and it doesn't or stop her from actively trying and sometimes succeeding in making her and her kids' situations better--but this one element of being trapped in the world you are born into with limited options holds true for Rhaenyura. At least with Rosby/Stokeworth and how she intended to deal with her brothers/their supporters.

And the pressure, again, of the stolen treasury, threat of her brothers still out there, two sons dead violently and her unable to bury either of them. Everything of this happening all at once...I maintain that it would have raised more faith if GRRM made her do the Dragonseed bit herself or more events where she took the lead, but that doesn't mean that since she is the final decision maker that we/GRRM should totally erase how this would cause more of a mental toll on her versus Daemon or Corlys. It's just that he refused to write more events showcasing Rhaneyra's getting back into the "game", so to speak. To show any trace of the clued education and resilience SOONER and MORE OFTEN before Jace dies. Those things that he himself clued us in on from the pre-war era, in favor of letting his male characters shine.

Still, Rosby and Stokeworth was an actually difficult conundrum of a rock and a hard place.

*[6/1/24], END*

B)

and he might still be alive!

That's more legend/fandom wishful thinking. He's definitely not alive. But yeah, he's male and an active one in the war so he gets a legend.

Why don't Visenya, Rhaenya and Alysanne all get "legends" of their own? Because Visenya and Rhaena conquered Westeros w/Aegon while acting as pseudo-Queen Regents/Regnants, apssing laws in the realm they constructed. Instead of just being his consorts. As his consort, Jaehaerys I allowed Alysanne to give suggestions and critiques, but she never actually made or passed or enforced laws; while without her many laws wouldn't have been made or they wouldn't have been abolished, she is also still Jaehaerys' consort without any "hard" political power required to directly change structures in Westeros without having to persuade Jaehaerys to do so. It's part of the decline of female non-militant autonomy and direct authority (which came with the Targ assimilation into the comparatively more violent, abusive, and restrictive Andal patriarchy) that was beginning to rise again with Rhaenrya becoming heir and given that male-designated power...until she's usurped.

C)

even Aegon managed that in getting Dragonstone to defect

However, anon, Aegon actually didn't accomplish the Dragonstone thing. There is no indication that he orchestrated or planned in detail how to take Dragonstone. That was Larys and the men who actually took it for Aegon while he sat up in the cliffs of Dragonstone. ("Rhaenyra Overthrown"):

And the only other moment where one could say he displayed some leadership--Rook's Rest--when he decided to fight on dragonback, it was a terrible plan he ended up flamebroiled, which shows how Rhaenyra was better staying out of the battle not already being battle trained herself. Again, we have no indication that Aegon was much of a warrior, like how Viserys was not and Daemon was. Because he rushed too much and wanted to hammer his opponents out of aggreived impatience, partially due to his son getting killed and more so because his ego needed him to show how he can beat the other side and annihilate them. He loses his temper several times at Otto until he dismisses him for Cole's more aggressive approach ("The Red Dragon and the Gold"):

D)

Caraxes is an “old, fast, clever dragon” who helps win Harrenhal without a fight and kill Vhagar, while Syrax is a lazy dragon who mainly exists to get Joffrey killed and then die in the dragonpit (even Sunfyre is better than her, essentially coming to Aegon’s rescue)

Some theorize that Syrax actually shows what happens when you domesticate your dragons or force them into enclosed spaces for long periods of time. But this sentence and other indications that. Plot-wise, it certainly looks like Syrax is completely useless and yet ("The Blacks and the Greens"):

“That makes four dragons of fighting size,” said Rhaenys. Queen Helaena’s twins had their own dragons too, but no more than hatchlings; the usurper’s youngest son, Maelor, was possessed only of an egg. Against that, Prince Daemon had Caraxes and Princess Rhaenyra Syrax, both huge and formidable beasts.

AND

Where's she planned to be a part of at least the KL takeover and ambush if not be the last point of a line of dragons bc the monarch must always be protected...but GRRM makes it so Rhaenyra hangs back for some woman-specific physical reason or other: recovery from miscarriage AND grief or just her anxiety over her sons' deaths.

And Syrax lays many, many eggs that are stored for future Targs--more than other female dragons have been known to. I wouldn't call her completely "useless", it's that she wasn't used for war -- against, that maternal element that feels insufficient for wartime, at least as the only thing she's doing for the blacks.

("A Question of Succession"):

AND

("The Blacks and the Greens")

On the one hand, yay, more dragons and the symbolism of fertility and women being the center of Targaryen magic and prosperity and Rhaenyra is very happy to birth her final two boys and she wanted her Visenya. All definite heirs to the dynasty...

On the other, it seems as if GRRM is also maintaining a binary between female reproductive labor vs masculinized military labor (not just swordwork but tactical, strategy, logistics, etc.). Canon!Rhaenyra is what I've called "high-femme" in presentation and lack of knowledge of how to confront through arms (swords, bow-and-arrow, basically anything physical and war-related). I've also often said that Rhaenyra is not and never will be Daenerys Stormborn, who has many gender subversions without being very "tomboy". Like Arya (no, bk Arya is actually interested in "femme" stuff, it's that she's teased and discouraged bc she doesn't act "ladylike" in the Westerosi paradigm of aristocratic femininity). She doesn't have the same sort of background nor the compassion as either of these two, but does have the backbone to not succumb to other's calls for her to give up something they do not think she deserves due to her gender--in the beginning of her life, events before Lucerys' death, and then when she gets to KL onwards. Daenerys is way more complex and interesting, but if anything this is the only thing I can think of that these two women share and it's very important still. (Even though Dany's not a woman-woman.)

And it presents the question of why GRRM didn't allow Rhaenyra to do both and present more to do with her but make her just fail because of very unlucky shit other than the KL stuff? Like her make her strategic, but luck or the green counteract and got the better of her...because it is a fact that she has to die in some way. Not only that, she has to die/lose partly by her own hand, which she does by not getting a handle on the paranoia that's been accruing since childhood (yes) and relying on her class to carry her in a way where it opposes Dany and Nettles' ingenuity and understanding of dragon bonding. But again, that sort of mania, level of loss of senses, and how its used in the story to disable her from participating in some way in her own cause is...crazy and a cheap and sexist shot to make her fall by her own hand. Making her lose all her sons within a short time is dramatic and expressive of the horror of this particular war...you couldn't do that by giving more to your female protagonist things to do as you kill off her kids?!

I'm actually fine that Rhaenyra doesn't directly participate in war-faring as Visenya or Rhaenys or how Daenerys inevitably will--not every person is a warrior or can be, to enact great positive change. Like Daeron II & Alysanne (Alysanne may or may not be a good example bc she may have been discouraged from using Silverwing for that, but we don't see her confronted with this possibility behind closed doors, so...). Not everyone can/should be a swordsperson, archer, etc. What happens when you were not trained in these things, should you be considered "useless"? Or what if you simply weren't good at it?

*[6/22/24]* But she could OR she could have in strategy or logistics or something. But it's like because she doesn't have those of her body with her anymore, her mind must go as well? It's not even that she became "crazy" at the very end so much as she became paranoid and I'm sure that the impression of her going "crazy" was manufactured subtly by Gyldayn...but GRRM couldn't have given Rhaenrya more of a material reason to suspect those around her and not diffrentiate Ulf/Hugh from Addam/Alyn Velaryon/Nettles?! Bc in our eyes and observations, the Velaryons and Nettles' loyalties are undoubtable and she also had some moments of quiet to try to gather herself while at KL to even be a part of many councils and make decisions she had the capacity to think..., so why does Rhaenyra so easily suspect them even with the hanging deaths of her kids over her head? This is still a fictional piece of work; GRRM had options and we know he's creative enough. How this is all written without even a rumor of how Rhaenyra reasoned more Dragonseeds would betray her, unless this is just lost to history AND it is Gyldayn/other maesters before him doing dirty work?

Perhaps this is another reason why I really don't mind a little rewrite here for Rhaenyra, as long as it's written well and I don't trust these writers of HotD for a sec to provide a nonsexist reason for her turning on the Dragonseeds. *[6/22/24], END*

And then there's the definition of a warrior to be discussed: Rhaenys the Conqueror was still war-faring on Meraxes, Meraxes was her war device as much as Vhagar and Balerion were for the sword-wielding other two. It is Andal parameters of "warrior" that has labeled Rhaenys as not one even as she, on a dragon, burnt people at the Field of Fire. Do we not consider Air Force to be "warriors"--well Americans and those in the military have a weird thing about Air Force vs Marines vs yada yada, but again that might (probably) be patriarchy at work. Either way, in this case, yes Rhaenyra could have at least done the Rhaenys thing and stayed on Syrax burning people alive. So I fine with this happening on HotD as well. There's interesting commentary to come from that that GRRM refused to indulge.

Honestly, I don't know. To me it has to do with what the former brideoffires/Twitter's danylanzhou has said about Nettles and Dany, how Rhaenrya did not have what they describe and how GRRM actually went way too hard in the paint for that. but that's as much as I can say.

Do any if these graces make her a more active OR complex/interesting character to read as we are given? Not really. Again, not without PoV chapters or at the very least letter or journals or something(s) she wrote for reflection if she was ever interested in that, IF GRRM just refused to just give her more stuff to do. It's as disappointing as when some Shakespeare fans describe their extreme disappointment with how Merchant of Venice contradicts his other play's wittier and more...compassionate(?) tend to be.

I also still don't like and will never like HotD's Rhaenyra bc they also simply have not developed her with the money they had before the strikes. And now with this DV shit, I definitely will never like the writing for her...because how the fuck is she so determined but performs no domestic power against Daemon after ruling Dragonstone for years?!!! How is this "better" and not more sexist than canon?! [@rhaenin-time's post HERE]

So yeah, in this way, HotD is just following GRRM's lead...while not at the same time.

[maiapoetica]

[incorrectfbaaquotes]

Veses *to Nyktos*: Is she your girlfriend girlfriend or are y'all just talking?

Sera: Bitch, if I kill you are you dead dead or just not breathing?

[utdr-stimming]

can i maybe please get one of horror sans (don't add cannibal-esc stuff tho pls) since it's spooky season (i'm going as him lol)

Horror!Sans stim board!!!

This ask was actually recieved waaay before the Halloween event started, why am I posting it now then? Because this actually gave me the idea to do some sort of Halloween event thingy and I wanted to post this one on Halloween to close off the event!!! Hope your costume is super cool, anon!

I logged onto Tumblr dot com thinking "I'm gonna make the horror sans board" and what was the first thing in my dash? The art in the middle by @dump-lkg (Tumblr isn't @ing them properly)! I knew it was fate. All of the art from their account is literally the coolest ever and this is no exception! I could go on and on but you should really just take a look at the full piece. Please let me know if they're uncomfortable with me using their art :)

x x x

x x x

x x x

[oflorelei]

tbh in my personal opinion fire and blood is deeply written and complex if you take it for what it is— an extremely biased historic account with flawed sources and a lot of judgement of the chroniclers. 💃 i wouldn't say that ANY of the characters are flatly written, you just yk, gotta look a bit deeper into it— George is a great writer for a reason and yeah obviously you can't expect the same level of understanding of "deepness" of a character that gets two paragraphs in a book written by people that most likely didn't know them— again, *personally* i think George sprinkles in ENOUGH flaws and 'hints' about the deeper layers of character for it to make sense— it's a historic account and one HUGE thing is that with time there is glorification (think how they yassified Alexander the Great too lol), and yeah this DOES effect this record too! Alyssa is imo by no means flat and she very *clearly* has flaws, but essentially she died young and fullfilled her "Job" as woman in Westeros— be willing and happy to bear heirs, and she was willing to give baelon MANY— yes automatically she will be glorified by maesters and her "flaw" will be viewed as her looks when she had very humane flaws (her behavior towards Vaegon etc.). Imo, it's a disservice to judge fire and blood with the expectation of the rest of the series. It's a historic account, that's sorta how it works, you shouldn't take everything at face value tho and it's a bad imo to do so for george's writing style (which in general is full of unreliable narrators). That's just my opinion tho as someone who had to read thru some passages Fredegar Chronicles for a paper 😭

[emmaxrosa]

‘see aegon wasn’t a rapist in the book, it’s actually ryan condal and co. that decided that-’ nope, loud incorrect buzzer.

[beneaththeshadows]

"The dream was clearer than a memory"

Signs and portents

"Lord Aenar's maiden daughter Daenys, known forever afterward as Daenys the Dreamer, had foreseen the destruction of Valyria by fire. And when the Doom came twelve years later, the Targaryens were the only dragonlords to survive."

Daenys, the dreamer and her dream! I've spent quite some time at this, and I dropped it for no reason, and now it's finally here! (It was meant to be accompanied by a F&B re-read, but that'll arrive eventually) And I hate drawing buildings so much, so I hope it was worth it!

Also, please click to see the details! (the quality sucks as always)

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Thoughts about the supposed direction Rhaena's storyline is going in Hotd and the apparent Nettles erasure? Disappointing but... I can sort of see where they could take it? Idk... looking at grrm's posts in hindsight kinda makes me even more disappointed if he is as well (he just can't get his adaptations right atp but idk)

Well. Pre-ep7, we're still pending any Rhaena-Sheepstealer bonding, but I'm basically 😑🫠 about the rumors. (I dislike borrowing trouble, I'm not even sure how many of the rumors are true -- actually I'm pretty sure many of these supposed "leaks" are straight up lies -- and yet. Still *disgruntled meh* and *"we're all fine-everyone's fine here" dread*.) Rhaena is one of my more beloved F&B characters (it's the Sansa parallels, I can't help myself), and Nettles has been a super fave since TPATQ and TWOIAF. (Particularly TWOIAF, since the Burned Men fire-witch reveal; heck, I think my little dollmaker is still one of the few fanarts of Nettles in the mountains.)

I mean, sure, I understand that Rhaena's book storyline during the Dance, where she's offpage from basically the start of the war until nearly the end of it, socializing in the Vale and waiting for her egg to hatch, would be difficult to adapt in an action-oriented visuals-oriented television show. (Like Rhaenyra this season sure isn't just catatonically crying from Luke's death until Jace's.) And I'm glad Rhaena's getting more to do, and I'm glad it's directly addressing her feeling slighted and ignored by her family since she doesn't have a dragon. However...

I do not want Rhaena merged into one character with Nettles! I do not want Rhaena to have Sheepstealer and not her hope-for-the-future (doomed hope, and yet) baby dragon Morning, that hatched for her. Also note how pink Morning, worn as a fashion accessory, so suited Rhaena's coquette personality vs her sporty, adventurous twin sister... I mean, I've said before, I understand adaptations can be different, this still wouldn't make HOTD even close to a "loose adaptation".* But I do not want this adaptation to lose Rhaena's personality that I loved.

Or for that matter, to lose Nettles's character, and her importance to the themes and worldbuilding of ASOIAF. (See also.) And her importance to the plot -- but god knows, they're doing all sorts of things with Daemon and Rhaenyra on this show, toxic romance or what have you, who knows if once Daemon reaches his emotional breakthrough or whatever at Harrenhal this season, if they want to backslide him into a cheating plot in S3 while Daemon is again stuck in a castle for months.** Nevertheless, I'd be deeply disappointed to lose scenes like "as well as her dragon, the girl had taken to riding Daemon", or the last morning in Maidenpool scene... and um, you can't really fit Rhaena in there, or if you did, it would certainly put the lie to the ship denialists' "he just treated her like a father, platonically bathing naked together!" (Also the pretty blatant fake S3 leaks including one where Rhaenyra decides Rhaena has betrayed her... are pretty blatantly fake, sorry.)

And then there would be the frankly racist erasure of the one book black character. "Oh but the show made the Velaryons black, so it's not erasing, it's adding more!" No, sorry. (1) I was and am all for adding more racial diversity to the show and especially to Valyrians, but face it, when you take the book's secondary character Velaryons, two who get killed off early and are portrayed as lesser to the "true" Daemon/Rhaenyra marriage, and make them black, you've already done a lot of hinky damage there. (2) What, it's that hard to write three distinct black girls with very different personalities and one from an incredibly different background? I don't see Addam and Alyn getting merged. I don't see Aemond and Daeron getting merged. I don't see Hugh and Ulf getting merged. But I'm not really one to speak here, for this particular discussion I'd point you to @ride-thedragon and @venusintheblindspots-blog and @chrkrose, among others, they have many many posts on this subject in far greater detail and better argued than mine.

OK, so. I still have hope that Nettles -- even if not cast for this season (sorry y'all, that extra is an extra) -- may appear next season, and all this worry will turn out to be a tempest in a teapot. Per last report from the HOTD panel at SDCC, the rumor of Rhaena and Sheepstealer definitely doesn't happen in ep 7, though, yes, there's one episode after. And if it does happen... I'll be strongly disappointed. Deeply, deeply disappointed, and probably far more suspicious of future adaptational changes. But, for me at least, it's not a dealbreaker like GOT S5 was.*** I won't be happy at all about the storyline, but I would like to think the show will remain high quality re themes and character and all. Time will tell, though. Time will definitely tell.

As for GRRM, when his complaints seem to be "wild dragons shouldn't be in the Vale" and "the heraldry with four legs is wrong", well, I struggle to see that he's that disappointed in the adaptational changes. Believe me, I am well used to reading between the lines re GRRM and adaptations, something like the fact that he's not visiting the HOTD writers' room when he's in the UK is nothing. Catch me if at Worldcon or his Oxford lecture in August, GRRM again says that he could write a whole novel about Nettles, or if actually says something about non-Valyrian dragonriders, ok?

*I was just reading up on The Beast (2023) vs Henry James's “The Beast in the Jungle”. lol HOTD doesn't compare. Don't even think it, man.

**You know, this reminds me of how the Dance in F&B is not paced very well for individual characters, they keep going offscreen for months at a time. From shortly after Rhaenyra's crowning to the Fall of KL, Daemon just sits at Harrenhal and occasionally ventures out into the riverlands. From shortly after the Fall of KL until the Battle Above the Gods Eye, Daemon just... sits at Maidenpool and occasionally ventures out into the riverlands (with Nettles). Yeah, obviously a show would need to write more for him to do, he's a main character.

***Thank god HOTD isn't the sort of exploitative shitshow that GOT was. All y'all thinking it was a better adaptation because of your nostalgia goggles (and/or shitty memory) need to actually reread the books (especially AFFC/ADWD) and then submit yourself to the real-world misogynist and homophobic nonsense of S5-6 again, ugh.

[daenysthedreamer101]

Tiara for Queen Alicent Hightower

masterlist

[rookamell]

I dont understand why people are having aneurisms about george spoiling helaena's death in his blog post? Like the book has been out? Isn't that like complaining about someone telling you that both romeo and juliet die in the end before you go see the play? And I am genuinely asking here because it's not an isolated thing i've seen upwards of ten people say he shouldn't have done it

[horizon-verizon]

Lucerys went to Storm’s End to deliver Rhaenyra’s message, he insisted he would bring Borros’ reply to the QUEEN, Lucerys basically died for his mother’s claim and she repays him by trying to make up with his murderers ? That’s sociopathic.

Rhaenyra agreed to send her son as an envoy for the sake of her throne which she apparently doesn’t want and then she begs his murderers for peace ? Why did she let him go then ? Did she sacrifice him ? For what exactly ? She spat into her dead son’s face, she worries about her PR but not her son's sacrifice.

This ask accusing Rhaenrya as being sociopathic is part of why I simply don't emotionally/morally engage at face value (as in these are "real" or well realized character) with this show as much as a lot of other people in the asoiaf fandom do. I do engage as critically (analytically) as I can AND use some scenes as evidence against fandom sexism. The clear misunderstanding and trying to fix characters into roles that don't make sense for their arcs in this story of the Dance undermines too much of the HotD story for me to remain Watsonian about it.

Bec it is not "Rhaenyra" that is sociopathic. It is the sexist writing breeding inconsistency after inconsistency for the character as well as the entire list of circumstances--how kinslaying seems no big deal and how it seems no big deal that Aemond commits this taboo and thus removing a critical layer to why the blacks go to war to answer such a tragedy (this layer that is already on top of how they usurped her).

Though she'd be a valid character if she had been adapted/created for some other appropriate story, FOR THIS ONE and for the relationship she has w/Daemon, she simply doesn't make any sense (the reasoning for war, her kids dying and little response or exploration of that versus her trying to do what Viserys thinks...the guy who ruled pretty poorly, etc.) and is horribly, sexistly written so that they can get as many people--who are not really weighing what the point of her character was in the Dance story or truly care to understand the very basics of misogyny--to like her character. Which itself tells us something abt our world--women over male characters of fiction and perhaps real life need to be morally upright in order for the sexist violence to matter or even be defined as sexist. (Catelyn Stark of ASoIaF is a character who has her flaws but also her valid reasons for how she acts. Margarey of GoT is not sincere to smallfolk, but we can't count her as evil for it. ETC.)

That the motive behind her usurpation and eventual murder was greedy sexism. Then entire reason why Viserys is king is bc of sexism and the Targs succession rules not having been solofoed in terms of which royal has a superseding claim than the other since Aenys and Maegor. Many Targ men actively blocked their female counterparts or children or others' children to strengthen their own claim in the eyes of the Andal-Westerosi descents they were ruling and assimilating into for the ease of said rule.

Therefore yes, the Dance happened bc of misogyny/you can never remain that misogyny played a small role in it happening.

Part of the reason--but not the only reason--she fights for the throne is bc she wants payback for her sons' deaths/punish the greens/not have Luke-Jace die from nothing at all.

This is the same woman who marries Daemon Targaryen bc she is like him in the ferocity, prideful way as well as wanted him for his loyalty and willingness to go that far for her, their family/kids, and her crown. It was actually rather cheap for HotD to portray a Rhaenyra who is conflicted over: some sort of payback for Luke's death thru Blood & Cheese vs the horror of Helaena's grief and pain as a mother herself. A sort of reckoning that she may or may not accept and how far does she actually "accept"? THIS, I argue, would have been far more interesting bc of the layers to it all that reminds me of ebing close to any other Gothic narrative...and this is more of a Gothic couple than they aren't.

This also goes into how the focus of her distrust of him is somehow whether he's trying to rule through her instead of self control. It appears a fine line--bc some might think if she actually cared to follow directions or lead, he wouldn't fly off the handle or go behind their backs or do stuff like "heir for a day", so it has to be him wanting the throne for himself sincerely, and that is all...no love. Again, that is what she was arguing he was trying to do in the actual S2 E2 episode, when she says that he is just trying to use her name to do what he wanted against the Hightowers/Otto/his enemies.

When we have already hashed this bit out AND Rhaenyra (if we say she is very careful and deliberate when it comes to her kids' safety) would not have endangered her 3 boys if it were obviously true Daemon was gunning for them for himself...also, his daughters were marrying those boys so he does have stake in the line even with Jacaerys ruling bc he'd have ruling grandkids through him. So no, it didn't make sense, her concerns.

Not unless we reason that:

this Rhaenyra is simply not the same Rhaenyra as the book canon, and thus her relationship with Daemon simply makes no sense on screen as the writers wrote her/them

we recognize that the writers contradict epi 2, epi 7, epi 8 (all where she obviously understands him and puts trusts him not try to get the throne from/through her or harm her again NOT abt his emotional control) while remembering Daemon suddenly choke her out in epi 10 (which didn't make sense itself bc of those episodes I listed)

*7/14/24* I guess we could argue that Rhaenyra was more trying to address his tendency to leave her when things get too hard by accusing him of cold ambition (as an expression from the fear that he only wants her for power since he didn't bother to help her out at least 2x before, so this is her taking an opportunity to draw him into it and express that fear)...again, this doesn't make much sense when this show has made us believe that they had rather very peaceful and happy and fulfilled days on Dragonstone from S1 E8! This is a pre-marriage argument or at least an argument had either before Rhaenyra proposes to him--thus the argument is her confronting him before she ties herself to him--OR it's had in the first two years when he does something nasty or sus and she confronts him. It's not an argument that one has 6 years after marriage and raising 6 children and seemingly completely satisfied with one's partner WITHOUT HAVING ALREADY WRITTEN MULTIPLE SCENES SHOWING/ESTABLISHING SOMETHING LIKE A MISUNDERSTANDING THAT HOLDS A LOT OF TENSION BETWEEN THEM BEFORE THIS ARGUMENT! It should have been built into to make any modicum of sense. *END*

So yeah, even though I liked the acting and energy of the fight, I didn't care for Rhaenyra's argument w/Daemon. and it isn't actually Rhaenyra nor does their Rhaenyra make any sense, so I don't care to actually engage with this show that much or take it as a serious project. It's their cluster fuck of a character they made to draw in people who can't handle dark or morally questionable female character OR genuinely don't grasp what an unreliable narrator is:

[hulloitsdani]

Hiii!! If you're still taking feh rant asks, though my question may be a bit... broad. Do you have any thoughts/lore about the other Summoners who aren't our main friend Kiran? Your artwork of the purple and green haired summoners, and the one who wears armor similar to Alfonse have left such a strong impression on me... (I think there were more too? Rough sketches? I may be misremembering though!)

Any which way, they all left me wanting more!!! I WANNA KNOW THE LORE............ if it's ready, of course! If not, you can just toss a random Kiran thought at me LMFAOO I'll eat that up too!!! 🫡👍

Hehehehehehehehe

Hohohohohohoho

Okay, so, it started simple right? When we first got the other summoners, I debated what exactly I wanted to do with them. My goal has always been crafting a character out of the summoner using the two crumbs and toothpick IntSys throws my way. And this was… well it was certainly an interesting crumb. But I didn’t have an answer right away, so I stuck with our original hooded goober and let that thread hang in the back of my mind, awaiting for future use.

Future use would soon come as I began to figure out the narrative fabric of FEH. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: everyone in this narrative is lonely. The type of lonely that can get really bad for both the individual and the people around them. Once that clicked, I fully committed to making Kiran’s source of loneliness being the loss of their home. They had a life, but now it’s gone and they’re starting from square one. This is unfortunately not the simple isekai power fantasy you’d hope it be for them. It fucks them up.

Now, put a pin in that as I shift gears to a totally not related topic (source: trust me, your unreliable narrator). The families of our core cast are important in understanding their characters, as it’s a very common source for these themes of loneliness. We’re all familiar with Sharena and Alfonse’s tense family dinner dynamics, but we also have Reginn and her brothers, Askr and Ash, Embla and Elm, Eir and Hel, everything about book 4, Bruno’s constant no good very bad day, etc. The two characters we don’t have directly have that for is Anna and Kiran.

Anna is a pretty easy fill in the blank. She’s a picture perfect copy of a million other merchants throughout time and space, and yet she’s the only one who ended up as a loyal political assassin turned war commander. From that description alone, we can easily think of a few reasons why she would end up as this odd black sheep. And no matter what we choose, all of them pretty seamlessly feed back into why she leads an elite military battalion full of fellow black sheep. For Kiran, it’s not as simple. They got isekaied and they miss their world, but I don’t got much to work with in fleshing that out further. It’s purposely vague for you, the player, to self insert onto. The most I got is that little dj moment for book 5’s April fools.

…Then it hit me. I had two loose threads here. What if I tied them together?

CAN OF WORMS OPENED. BIG ADOPTION HOURS. Kiran is the ultimate middle child and has six other siblings, plus mom and dad. Part of a large family of nine. This had the effect I wanted— it instantly added flavor to their dynamics with others. Like, oh, THATS why they’re like that with Veronica and Reginn. It’s the youngest sibling and middle child solidarity. But then I realized the timing of this had implications. If something happened to Kiran, like them going missing without a trace, these people would have came looking. They might have ended up in Askr on the hunt for their missing sibling. That then opened a flood gate of potential narratives that proceeded to take over my brain.

It goes even further though! Because there was another lose thread I was playing with. So Freya’s offer, right?Surely, surely there has to be a world where the summoner took that deal. Surely there are worlds where the summoner falls directly to Hel and comes under her control or Eitiri gets her mitts on them. Those situations would undoubtedly become inter dimensional threats, right? Well, I tied that idea to the other summoners and played with where I’d think each of them would fail based on vibes. Then I noticed that each of them have a circlet that our hooded summoner doesn’t visibly have. Bada bing bada boom let’s make that sucker a cursed object that acts as a built in summoner self destruct in case of emergencies.

The end result of all this was the creation of this weird yet delightfully chaotic little family! They’re all trying to make the best of their newfound circumstances and find those they left behind. Also, probably, super doomed! Like it’s bad! It’s accepts the deal Freya proposes bad!

For the best and most fleshed out example, the guy in Alfonse’s armor. Guy with his hair half up. This bitch.

For simplicity’s sake, we’re gonna call him Eclat.

When attempting to answer where these other summoners would fail, I didn’t always want it to be the simple obvious choice. I wanted it to be reflective of a character flaw that I could build a character around. So, with that in mind, what is the most interesting way for a summoner to fail to defeat Hel in book 3?

After thinking about it for a while, I decided that Eclat dooms himself by killing Eir. Instead of showing her mercy, taking her into the Order’s care, and deciding to help her despite the clear threat she poses to everyone’s safety, he feels he cannot risk the people he’s in charge of and makes the tough call to prioritize his own. But without Eir, the fight against Hel is doomed. Further more, he’s not the type of character to active the blood rite. He kills Eir in defense of Askr’s people— there’s no way in hell he’d then proceed to sacrifice those people to defeat Hel. From his perspective, that defeats the point of everything they’re attempting to do.

The result is inevitable. His allies eventually fall one by one, until he’s the last member of the Order standing. In one final gambit, he dawns the armor of his fallen comrades, uses up every last orb remaining, and fights his way to the blood rite. There, Hel finds him, a hand wave away from activating it, offering her a deal. He can either activate the blood rite, robbing Hel of any remaining death that could give her power and creating a weapon that could one day kill her. Or she could take him, a summoner, instead and use his abilities to create an endless stream of death in exchange for never claiming a soul from Askr ever again. Is a brutal call, but one in line with the decisions he’s made so far.

Hel accepts his proposal. She brings him under her domain and twists him into a similar being that Líf and Thasir are. However, something interesting happens. Eclat never had any intention of willing handing over an ounce of power. He plans to kick and scream the whole way down. He doesn’t have much of a choice, but if Hel turns him into one of her own and gives him her power, then maybe he could use it against her. So, in his final moments thrashing for his life, the circlet activates. As golden rings wrap around him, he grabs the goddess and the legion of dead connected to her.

It all happens rather quickly from there. The rings pull down. Someone is screaming. It’s too bright to see. Suddenly, all too suddenly to be honest, it’s just gone. Hel, the dead, the Breidablik… all of it is dissipating into nothing. And Eclat… he knows he won, but h-he doesn’t feel good. It’s cold and he can’t get his eyes to focus. There’s nothing holding him up anymore, is there? He can feel it. It’s all gone. Very few souls on Zenith remain thanks to him, and he knows that very soon, he will not be one of them.

Fuck man, that’s rough. Alexa play Annapantsu’s cover of Feeling Good for the dramatic irony.

So, starting from the end of this tragedy, I began to work backwards into his more stable characterization. Trek back to find the Eclat that Kiran knew. He’s clearly this extremely loyal and protective guy who will do a lot to keep his people safe. He also, unfortunately, doesn’t see the best in other people and doesn’t afford them the same kindness. Put table scraps in front of hungry kids, and he will be the first to start fighting others for the remains. But he won’t eat a piece. Instead he brings his earnings back to his family and lets them eat first. Under any other circumstances, these traits would be fine. Admirable even. At the end of the day, the worst you can say about the guy is that he’s a realist. But that’s the point of a tragedy, ain’t it? Those traits in this scenario would end bad.

Compare this to Kiran, someone who willingly risks the safety of themself and others for the slim chance of an outcome where everyone benefits. That is also admirable and managed to save lives in this scenario. But oh god. In just saying those words outloud, it’s clear how easily these two get on each other’s fucking NERVES. Presidential alert the girls are fightingggggg. Finally, a character that has the capacity to instantly piss Kiran off. It’s a tall order, but Eclat has years of experience and vice versa. If anyone outside of these two says shit about the other, they’ll kill em. That’s their sibling and you will respect that. But oh god, they’re both insufferable and it’s great.

I loveeee this little bastard I made. This has passed the point of head cannon and I have straight up used FEH as a creative writing prompt. I’ve been slowly doing making my way through all the summoners as well. Purple mom and green dad make me very sad! Maybe I’ll talk about em in the future, but for now I’ll leave this here, because this is long enough as it is! Hope you enjoyed!

[incorrectfbaaquotes]

Casteel *to Poppy*: Bad news is you've lost a lot of blood.

Delano: *looks at puddle on floor* Good news is we've found it!

[oflorelei]

just finished my semester, might do a quick analysis on how to handle historical sources (since a lot of yall apparently are unable to do so) in asoiaf 🙂 yes. this is about mushroom.

[long-claw]

Is Fire and Blood worth reading? I’ve heard that it isn’t entirely accurate since it’s a history book

so fire and blood is written in this super interesting way where it's not only a history book but it's also aware that it's a history book, and is actually pretty honest about its sources.

so for things like dates and very public events, unless it's stated otherwise, we can assume that most of it is accurate, albeit kinda vague.

but obviously there's a lot of rumours and more private situations where the book had to draw from less trusted sources.

for example, during the portion of the book that correlates with hotd there's a lot of death and rumours, so the named sources are written by Mushroom the fool, Septon Eustace and Grand Maester Munkun, who all wrote accounts of the dance. but the authors of these sources are on different teams and have reasons to lie or add things for their own amusement and i think the book's pretty upfront about that.

anyway to answer you're question i'd say it's definitely worth the read, if only for your own entertainment lmao, but it's not what i would personally call inaccurate, just more ambiguous and less detailed at points than the other asoiaf books.

edit: more thoughts on whether fire and blood is biased here.

[nightshadehoney]

So HotD made the most predictable possible change to the source material for Blood and Cheese (with a strangely lackluster presentation), because only one theme allowed in a show I guess.

The change probaby would've worked if the show had actually spent time establishing Helaena's character and her relationship to her children at any point before this. But it's more important to tear through events at warp speed to get to the dragon fighting parts.

Like we can easily understand why Fire and Blood Helaena makes the decision she does--she thinks her toddler doesn't understand what is going on as much her older son. And her reaction is easy to understand too--it's not surprising that a mother who experienced that would be mad with grief.

But for HotD, why did Helaena point out Jahaerys so immediately? Did it nor occur to her to lie? Was she attempting a double bluff? Does she actually value Jahaera more, because Jahaerys is the heir to her shitty husband? Was she acting in accordance with a dragon dream she had? We don't really know, and don't even really have enough information about her to make any informed speculations.

Why Helaena seem to under-react and refer to her own son as "the boy"? I guess we're supposed to just accept as a result of shock and the fact that she's autistic or whatever? But it would be easier to accept if we had a stronger baseline for how she typically acts.

I won't go as far to say that I hate HotD or that I think it's bad, it's just that I find it profoundly disappointing. The one reason I decided to watch it when I didn't care about the Game of Thrones show is that I actually wanted to see it adapted. I wanted to see the story decompressed and to learn things about the characters and their relationships that only existed between the lines in the book. Instead what I got was a show that threw everything I wanted to see more of out completely and feels like its giving me even less details than the book did.