#game of thrones critical

[hoolay-boobs]

YA novel covers

[valkyriepegusus]

As much as I want GRRM to finish and publish Winds of Winter, honestly I can’t even blame him for not being in any sort of rush to do so.

If I were him, and I spent like half my life writing bible sized books— with thousands of pages of additional material that is primarily focused on how the mistreatment of women and the concept of purity culture is extremely destructive and harmful, why heredity monarchies are dangerous, and how biased misogynistic men will manipulate history, only for people to unironically support male primogeniture, be proudly “bastardphobic”, rank characters based on their ability to fight, and sympathize with slavers. I would genuinely just not finish the series as a punishment like I don’t even blame him for not being eager to publish more content just for people to grossly misconstrue.

[eliaism]

anti targs love acting like Targaryen women, specially Rhaenyra and Daenerys, haven’t experienced trauma. the “alicent’s big doe eyes” thing and dany antis who pit Sansa against her (but like Cersei ironically) and treat her pain like it is non-existent. I get that show!Alicent is (sadly) different than book!Alicent, but show!Alicent would not get nearly as much sympathy if she were like her book counterpart.

LOOK AT THIS GIRL. Does she look like she’s been having a great time?

Targaryens, especially Targaryen women don’t need to be “villains” and non-targ women don’t need to be the epitome of innocence and above criticism like how the show runners and TG treat Alicent or an “enemy” of the Targaryens like some people want Sansa (as well as Arya) to be.

Rhaenyra was a child too. She was the same age as Alicent at the start of the show and in the book I think she was around 7 while Alicent was either an older teen or an adult at the beginning. Dany was 13 at the beginning of AGOT and in the show I believe 16. They started as scared young girls going through trauma too, just because members of their family, mostly men, were shitty DOESN’T make them evil or unsympathetic. Dany’s story is literally about her MAKING CHANGE and being different from her ancestors.

Sansa hate not welcome just to be safe.

[viiisenyas]

I think HotD has way too much hype. The writing isn't really that good.

You're not wrong there. The bar for ASOIAF adaptations was dropped down to ground zero after Season 7 and 8 of Game of Thrones (although some may argue that it truly dropped after Season 4). House of the Dragon is admittedly just barely above that bar, and many of us were just glad to see something that wasn't an absolute train wreck.

But I still enjoy it to a certain extent. Now if you want to dive into a hyper-critical viewing, then yes, I understand how it can become agonising to watch - especially if you've already read the novel.

Some "creative liberties" that the writers have taken in Season 1 still have me scratching my head. (Namely Aegon's arc following Mushroom's account for some reason and the brilliant idea of making him the Westerosi equivalent of a FratBoy™ with the whole Dyana thing despite it not being in the books at all, then there was Rhaenys and Meleys appearing in the Dragonpit in episode 9, Rhaenys' arc in choosing to side with Rhaenyra despite her suspicion that Rhaenyra had something to do with Laenor's death, Corlys' bizarre reaction to learning of Vaemond's death... I could really go on for days in all honesty.)

[lupuslikethewolf]

one of the reasons i dislike show!dany (not that im an anti, i loved her sm in seasons 1-5) but not book!dany is honestly more of a complaint i have about the show as a whole, rather than just her.

in the show, the threat of the others was presented as a distraction to the game of thrones, whereas in the books the game of thrones is presented as a distraction to the oncoming threat of the others. because the throne is a construct and the others are the actual fucking apocalypse. but whatever, right?

as such: show!dany did not care much for fighting against the others because atp she only wanted the throne. she just wanted it to be over and done with so she could conquer the rest of westeros. but book!dany would abandon all ambitions for the throne to fight against the others because book!dany values life and people and helping others above all else. she would fight against the others because she is a liberator, and what is more liberating than stopping the others? if she then gets support for her claim because of that, good for her, but that’s not what she would be fighting for. she would be fighting for people. not power.

[tartheanmaid]

Since the show ends badly, are the books ending any better? I hate putting a lot of effort into reading (dyslexia) just for the ending to be bad. If it's good I'll just swap the show ending for the book ending in my mind

well, that’s sort of a tricky question. i could tell you a million theories i have about how the books will end, but in truth, only time will tell, and most fans aren’t optimistic that we’ll ever get ADOS(the final book).

but i can tell you that george has said the major beats(sansa’s coronation, tyrions thing, king bran, aryas pirate thing, dark dany) will all be the same, but most other endings for minor characters (the hound, euron greyjoy, theon, all of dorne, jaime/cersei will die together but probably much eariler, jaime and tyrion will prob never fix their relationship,etc. etc.) just because the show cut lots and lots and lots of characters and plot lines, so they’ll have to play a role in the ending too, making it vastly different from the show. i believe it will be a happy ending/stark restoration, and i take that from many quotes george has said throughout the years, the books themselves, and george’s personal political views.

like say, cersei in the final few seasons is not actually cersei, she’s merged with a very important (and poc) character that was cut from the show. his name is aegon vi/young griff, and i’d recommend looking into him, he’s one of my favorite characters in the series. another one id rec looking at is arianne martell (a woc), who has her own reoccurring POV chapters and everything. she’s not just a very important political player in westeros, she’s been climbing up to main character(or at least high secondary) in the last few books and the TWOW chapters that have been released early.

in the end, the books and long but not super hard to read, and definitely worth it in my opinion. but they’re not done, no one knows if they’ll ever be done. all we can do is speculate. but what’s out is absolutely amazing!!! like think of how good you think the show is right now, and then multiply that by like a bil and that’s how good the books are. (this is coming from a book nerd so)

[growingstrong2019]

Conleth Hill & Dame Diana Rigg hanging out in between filming Game Of Thrones season 7. I’m sure they weren’t discussing the drastic decline in writing while having lunch 😆

[fortunethief]

Absolutely LOVE this look!

[spacerockfloater]

Cersei Lannister & Rhaenyra Targaryen:

Are forced to marry someone they don’t love, so they find solace in the arms of a family member and commit incest

Seduce members of the Royal Guard

Have their husbands murdered because they didn’t like them

Have three bastard kids

Commit atrocities to claim the Iron Throne

Betray their allies when they feel threatened

Rule with fire and blood

Live in constant paranoia so they murder innocent servants whom they believe will betray them, even if said betrayal would be a direct consequence of the way they treat their subjects

Are hated by the people

and lets us not forget the -

But no, please go ahead and tell me all about how Rhaenyra is this feminist icon who has the divine right to rule over hundreds of thousands of people because her daddy said so, therefore if I don’t support her I’m a misogynist.

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

Is there anything support the populat interpretation that old valriya and valryians in general are more feminist, and progressive than the rest in Asoiaf?

Anon, thank you! I've been wanting to address this for awhile, so I'm going to actually answer this really fully, with as many receipts as I can provide (this ended up being more of an essay than I intended, but hopefully it helps)

I think there's in fact plenty of evidence to suggest that Valyria and the Valyrians in general were anything but progressive. Valyria was an expansive empire with a robust slave trade that practiced incest based on the idea of blood supremacy/blood purity. All of these things are absolutely antithetical to progressivism. There is no way any empire practicing slavery can ever be called progressive. Now, the Targaryens of Dragonstone have since given up the practice of slavery, but they certainly still believe in the supremacy of Valyrian blood.

And I'll see the argument, well what's wrong with believing your blood is special if your blood really is special and magic? Which is just-- if anyone catches themselves thinking this, and you sincerely believe that GRRM intended to create a magically superior master race of hot blondes who deserve to rule over all other backwards races by virtue of their superior breeding which is reinforced through brother-sister incest, and you've convinced yourself this represents progressive values, then you might want to step away from the computer for a bit and do a bit of self reflection.

And remember-- what is special about this special blood? It gives the bearers the ability to wield sentient weapons of mass destruction. It's also likely, according to the most popular theories, the result of blood magic involving human sacrifice. So there is a terrible price to pay for this so-called supremacy. Would any of us line up to be sacrificed to the Fourteen Flames so that the Valyrians can have nukes?

And if you are tempted by the idea that a woman who rides a dragon must inherently have some sort of power-- that is true. A woman who rides a dragon is more powerful than a woman who does not ride a dragon, and in some cases, more powerful than a man who does not ride a dragon, but that does not make her more powerful than a man who also rides a dragon. Dragonriding remained a carefully guarded privilege, and Targaryen women who might otherwise become dragonriders were routinely denied the privilege (despite the oft repeated "you cannot steal a dragon," when Saera Targaryen attempted to claim a dragon from the dragonpit, she was thrown into a cell for the attempted "theft,"words used by Jaehaerys). The dragonkeepers were established explicitly to keep anyone, even those of Targaryen blood, from taking them without permission. Any "liberation" that she has achieved is an illusion. What she has gained is the ability to enact violence upon others who are less privileged, and this ability does not save her from being the victim of gender based violence herself.

Politically speaking, it is also true that Valyria was a "freehold," in that they did not have a hereditary monarchy, but instead had a political structure akin to Ancient Athens (which was itself democratic, but not at all progressive or feminist). Landholding citizens could vote on laws and on temporary leaders, Archons. Were any of the lords freeholder women? We don't know. If we take Volantis as an example, the free city that seems to consider itself the successor to Valyria, the party of merchants, the elephants, had several female leaders three hundred years ago, but the party of the aristocracy, the tigers, the party made up of Valyrian Old Blood nobility, has never had a female leader. Lys, the other free city, is known for it's pleasure houses, which mainly employ women kidnapped into sexual slavery (as well as some young men). It is ruled by a group of magisters, who are chosen from among the wealthiest and noblest men in the city, not women. There does not seem to be a tradition of female leadership among Valyrians, and that's reflected by Aegon I himself, who becomes king, rather than his older sister-wife, Visenya. And although there have been girls named heir, temporarily, among the pre-Dance Targaryens, none were named heir above a trueborn brother aside from Rhaenyra, a choice that sparked a civil war. In this sense, the Targaryens are no different from the rest of Westeros.

As for feminism or sexual liberation, there's just no evidence to support it. We know that polygamy was not common, but it was also not entirely unheard of, but incest, to keep the bloodlines "pure," was common. Incest and polygamy are certainly sexual taboos, both in the real world and in Westeros, that the Valyrians violated, but the violation of sexual taboos is not automatically sexually liberated or feminist. Polygamy, when it is exclusively practiced by men and polyandry is forbidden (and we have no examples of Valyrian women taking multiple husbands, outside of fanfic), is often abusive to young women. Incest leads to an erosion of family relationships and abusive grooming situations are inevitable. King Jaehaerys' daughters are an excellent case study, and the stories of Saera and Viserra are particularly heartbreaking. Both women were punished severely for "sexual liberation," Viserra for getting drunk and slipping into her brother Baelon's bed at age fifteen, in an attempt to avoid an unwanted marriage to an old man. She was not punished because she was sister attempting to sleep with a brother, but because she was the wrong sister. Her mother, the queen had already chosen another sister for Baelon, and believed her own teenage daughter was seducing her brother for nefarious reasons. As a sister, Viserra should have been able to look to her brother for protection, but as the product of an incestuous family, Viserra could only conceive of that protection in terms of giving herself over to him sexually.

Beyond that, sexual slavery was also common in ancient Valyria, a practice that persisted in Lys and Volantis, with women (and young men) trafficked from other conquered and raided nations. Any culture that is built on a foundation of slavery and which considers sexual slavery to be normal and permissible, is a culture of normalized rape. Not feminist, not progressive.

I think we get the picture! so where did this idea that Valyrians are more progressive come from? I think there are two reasons. One, the fandom has a bit of a tendency to imagine Valyrians and their traditions in opposition to Westerosi Sevenism, and if Sevenism is fantasy Catholicism, and the fantasy Catholics also hate the Valyrian ways, they must hate them because those annoying uptight religious freaks just hate everything fun and cool, right? They hate revealing clothing, hate pornographic tapestries, hate sex outside of marriage, hate bastards. So being on Sevenism's shit-list must be a mark of honor, a sign of progressive values? But it's such a surface level reading, and a real misunderstanding of the medieval Catholic church, and a conflating of that church with the later Puritan values that many of us in the Anglosphere associate with being "devout." For most of European history, the Catholic church was simply The Church, and the church was, ironically, where you would find the material actions which most closely align with modern progressive values. The church cared for lepers, provided educations for women, took care of orphans, and fed the poor. In GRRM's world, which is admittedly more secular than the actual medieval world, Sevenism nevertheless has basically the same function, feeding the poor instead of, you know, enslaving them.

Finally, I blame the shows. While Valyrians weren't a progressive culture, Daenerys Targaryen herself held relatively progressive individual values by a medieval metric. She is a slavery abolitionist, she elevates women within her ranks, and she takes control of her own sexuality (after breaking free from her Targaryen brother). But Daenerys wasn't raised as a Targaryen. She grew up an orphan in exile, hearing stories of her illustrious ancestors from her brother, who of the two did absorb a bit of that culture, and is not coincidentally, fucked up, abusive, and misogynistic. He feels a sexual ownership over his sister, arranges a marriage for her, and even after her marriage, feels entitled to make decisions on her behalf. It is only after breaking away from Viserys that Dany comes into her own values. Having once been a mere object without agency of her own, she determines to save others from that fate and becomes an abolitionist. But because Game of Thrones gave viewers very little exposure to Targaryens aside from Daenerys, House Targaryen, in the eyes of most show watchers, is most closely associated with Dany and her freedom-fighter values. And as for Rhaenyra in House of the Dragon, being a female heir does not make her feminist or progressive, although it is tempting to view her that way when she is juxtaposed against Aegon II. Her "sexual liberation" was a lesson given to her by her uncle Daemon, a man who had an express interest in "liberating" her so that she would sleep with him, it was not a value she was raised with. In fact, she was very nearly disinherited for it, and was forced into a marriage with a gay man as a result of said "liberation." She had no interest in changing succession laws to allow absolute primogeniture, no interest in changing laws or norms around bastardy despite having bastards; she simply viewed herself as an exception. Rhaenyra's entire justification for her claim is not the desire to uplift women, bring peace and stability to Westeros, or even to keep her brother off the throne, it is simply that she believes she deserves it because her father is the king and he told her she could have it, despite all tradition and norms, and in spite of the near certain succession crisis it will cause. Whether she is right or wrong, absolutism is not progressive.

And let me just say, none of this means that you can't enjoy the Valyrians or think that they're fun or be a fan of house Targaryen. This insistence that Targaryens are the progressive, feminist (read: morally good) house seems by connected to the need of some fans to make their favorite characters unproblematic. If the Valyrians are "bad," does that make you a bad person for enjoying them? Of course not. But let's stop the moral grandstanding about the "feminist" and "progressive" Valyrians in a series that is an analogue for medieval feudalism. Neither of those things can exist under the systems in place in Westeros, nor could they have existed in the slavery based empire of conquest that was old Valyria.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

We can learn a lot about D&D from these two quotes. The fact that one is demonized and protrayed as a narcissist (falsely) while the other is adored and praised.

Daenerys, who D&D decided to portray as cruel and descending into insanity from season 5 on, is written as acknowledging her suffering. However, she says that she endured by finding strength in herself. This view of her past shows how she understands that, while without her circumstances she wouldn't be where she is today, she knows it was unnecessary and awful. Her motivation for most of the show is ensuring that what happened to her doesn't happen to anyone else.

Sansa, on the other hand, outright thanks her abusers. It's one thing to acknowledge how one's trauma shaped you, but it's another thing entirely to thank those who harmed you. By thanking Littlefinger, Ramsay, and others, Sansa is basically saying that her past self needed to suffer in order to become useful. It's D&D basically saying that femininity and women in general need to suffer in order to become "strong".

By choosing to contrast how Dany and Sansa view their pasts and deciding to make Sansa the one the audience is meant to root for, D&D are condemning Dany's idea. They are saying that women shouldn't credit themselves for enduring trauma, rather they should be thankful to their abusers.

This is just one example for how Dany is punished for being active in her life and actively rebelling against her "place" as a woman. Sansa is passive and only acts out when helped by men until the very end of the show, when she has "earned" her active role. Even in her final ending, she asks a man, her brother, to be given the North. Dany takes the lead in her life as soon as she is able, and, even when she's Drogo's bridal slave, she learns how to gain some semblance of power over her life.

Dany is punished by the GoT narrative for being a proactive woman and choosing to condemn rather than thank her abusers. Sansa is rewarded for her passivity and thankfulness to her abusers. This an just one example of the underlying sexism in the show.

[slavonicrhapsody]

so sick of seeing elden ring fans saying stuff like “blaming george rr martin for this part of the game I don’t like because we all know he loves violence and misogyny and incest and being edgy and the game would’ve been better off without him 🙄🙄” first of all you people actually have no idea what grrm’s work is actually about and second of all the demigods in elden ring are so wonderfully complex and interesting because grrm writes incredible characters. i’ll not hear any more of this slander

[venusintheblindspots-blog]

And to add more on my previous post, all of the main female characters (with the exception of Arianne Martell) in the main series of ASOIAF are representations of white femininity.

Every single one.

And that is because they are literally white. It doesn’t make them bad characters or anything.

I’ve talked about it before hand, but anytime George is writing a character of color, especially a black woman, he uses racist stereotypes and imagery. Every time.

There’s a reason why Dorne and the Summer Isles are sexually liberated, and why the Dothraki are portrayed as vicious ‘savages’ with hardly any redeeming values to their culture.

There’s a reason why Arianne’s exposure to sex and intimacy at ten years old is not framed the same way as say, Sansa’s.

There’s a reason why Chataya and her daughter are brutalized and reminiscent of the Jezebel trope.

[fromtheboundlesssea]

Listening to AGOT and another thought—more like a grievance.

I hate that Ned didn’t send Arya back to Winterfell after the Trident incident. She was not necessary for his cover and it was likely that a bigger issue could have arisen later (although it didn’t).

I also hate that the first person to use Sansa as a pawn for their own personal gain was her own father.

[lagosbratzdoll]

I get that you guys hate Daenerys. I don't understand it but I get it. What I don't get is why so many of you have these misogynistic fantasies about her death.

"She's villain-coded."

That's all well and good but there are tens of men in the books who have done worse and continue to do worse in pursuit of far less noble causes. I don't see people posting rape fantasies about them. I have never seen a single post where Gregor Clegane, Jamie Lannister, Petyr Baelish, Tywin Lannister or his odious brother Kevan are subjected to sexual violence before being murdered ignobly.

If anything people often blorbo-fy them. Jamie Lannister is apparently on a redemption arc even though there is little evidence of this in the books. Gregor Clegane has blinding headaches so we can't really judge him for how he chooses to destress. Tywin might be a monstrous person in canon but at least he loved his wife and that apparently forgives a multitude of sins. As for Petyr and Kevan, little is said of them but that's the point isn't it.

Aegon II the rapist without a single redeeming quality has fans who arduously defend him. "He's only a rapist because mummy and daddy didn't love him." "He's only a rapist because he doesn't know what rape is." It's fascinating stuff because many of those fans who arduously defend him are staunch Daenerys haters.

Funny how that works.

[whitegownsandflowercrowns]

Fun Facts:

You can like both Daenerys and Sansa

You can like both Arya and Sansa

You can like both Alicent and Rhaenyra

Many people actually like both characters in these pairings

Someone liking the Dany/Arya/Rhaenyra/Cersei grouping doesn’t mean that they’re a pick me

Someone liking the Sansa/Alicent/Helaena/Elia grouping doesn’t make them a raging misogynist

Stop pitting women against each other

I thought we all agreed that S8 of GOT doesn’t exist, why are we still doing this stupid Sansa vs. Dany stuff five years later (seriously - kids born during the airing of the final season are entering kindergarten this fall. This has been going on too long).

Can we all just be civil to each other when S2 of HOTD airs and not call each other rape apologists, cheer for the deaths of innocent children, or essentially write fanfiction about the other side’s fans? Please?