#god this was a SERIOUS flop year wasn't it ghjk

[hell-heron]

I posted 1,224 times in 2022

162 posts created (13%)

1,062 posts reblogged (87%)

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I tagged 1,147 of my posts in 2022

Only 6% of my posts had no tags

#asoiaf - 495 posts

#op - 124 posts

#ironborn - 96 posts

#romeo and juliet - 50 posts

#kitties - 45 posts

#hotd - 30 posts

#theon greyjoy - 13 posts

#derry girls - 13 posts

#disney - 11 posts

#😭 - 11 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#hilarious that luisa description tho... so isa is technically 'ideal in every way' but have i told you of how beautiful and smart and kind-

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Day 4 - (some tea about) House Greyjoy and House Harlaw

There tends to be a misconception in the fandom that Theon was not allowed to have contact with his family during his time at Winterfell, but that's not actually true, he just didn't get letters very often and his mail might have been read, but presumably he was allowed to reply. However in this light it becomes VERY interesting to see what information he has and doesn't have about his family:

Gods, he has grown grim, Theon thought. "Will I find my sister and my lady mother at Pyke?"

~

Theon searched for his uncle Euron’s Silence. Of that lean and terrible red ship he saw no sign,

~

Theon did not need to be told that Black Wind was Asha's longship. He had not seen his sister in ten years, but that much he knew of her.

~

A memory prodded at Theon. In one of his rare curt letters, Lord Balon had written of his youngest brother going down in a storm, and turning holy when he washed up safe on shore. "Uncle Aeron?" he said doubtfully.

Maybe, you know, he's "in denial about everything about the Iron Islands" because they only fucking write him the news that makes the family look good

28 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

#4

Day 26 - Parallels with Other Characters, also Names, Self-Actualization and Revenge, part 1 - Theon and Arianne

I want to say this started as an entirely different meta but I got distracted midway by the fact there are THREE characters besides Theon, actually, that seem to pass from being referred to in chapter titles by aliases to being referred by their name. Victarion in ADWD, Arianne and Barristan in TWOW. Obviously, GRRM might still have to pick chapter titles for TWOW, but given that the Forsaken, Mercy etc had their own titles, I think it works.

This strikes me bc Arianne and Victarion are characters with MASSIVE ACOK Theon energy in such a way that I think this says something about the way Theon's self actualization and finding his name again came to be.

Theon and Arianne occupy, alas, very similar spaces in the heart and spleen of the fandom as two ambitious very young adults who don't trascend past the inexperience and immaturity that could be expected even a little, in a series where half the major povs are extremely gifted children. Arianne's mistakes are obviously not as destructive as Theon's but there's a racist and sexist bias against her making it so they're pretty much equally hated. They're both extroverted and snarky and overtly sexual in a way that hides some pretty massive trust issues, struggling with rivarly towards a sibling they have very good reasons to feel is favored by their fathers over them despite being officially the heir, and they lash out against this in a very similar way

The queenmaker plot and the taking of Winterfell are similarly feverish, desperate, euphorically exciting-until-they're-not endeavors in which both Arianne and Theon endanger and hurt children they massively project on (the actual child murder on Theon's part nonwitstanding). Theon seeks to avenge his inner child reenacting his own hostage situation from a position of control, Arianne to heal her inner child realizing her fantasy of a disinherited daughter crowned over her younger brother. This is literally how she presents the plan to Arys:

“Will not? Cannot! Myrcella is more fit for rule …”

“A son comes before a daughter.”

“Why? What god has made it so? I am my father’s heir. Should I give up my rights to my brothers?”

At this point, needless to say, Arianne knows exactly nothing about Tommen to justify this. Obviously her fantasy is doomed even before her plan itself fails- Myrcella is younger than Arianne was when she found her father's letter and never had any desire for the Iron Throne, she doesn't quite comprehend the situation, her first reaction when she's called queen is fear that something happened to Tommen, where Arianne blindly embraces the idea Quentyn plotted against her. An absolutely unsatisfying projection vehicle, just as Bran, Rickon and Beth are for Theon - the Stark boys are helped escape, the whole household covering for them, when he tries to use Beth against her father as he was used, ser Rodrik begs to take him in her place. Theon's misery of being held hostage long term, completely alone and unsupported, only to realize his family had given up on him from the start remains his and his alone.

The motive also feels to me the same - grab for power that's actually a grab for agency lashing out at a situation of forced stasis they spent 10 years in, that's actually a desperate appeal for their fathers' love and trust. Theon's time in Winterfell is obviously horribly traumatic but it also represents a forced stasis, it's extremely damaging for him to have an illusion of physical freedom to do what he pleases vis-a-vis training, hunting, whoring etc. while actually he's prevented by adult responsibilities even as his fifteen year old foster brothers lead armies. The attainment of manhood on the Iron Islands for noble boys seems to coincide with becoming a captain. Theon is taken when he was just beginning to learn:

Ugly as it was, that smile brought back a hundred memories. Theon had seen it often as a boy, when he’d jumped a horse over a mossy wall, or flung an axe and split a target square. He’d seen it when he blocked a blow from Dagmer’s sword, when he put an arrow through a seagull on the wing, when he took the tiller in hand and guided a longship safely through a snarl of foaming rocks.

then never sets foot on a boat again for the next ten years and seemingly is put to train on equal footing with Robb and Jon who are four years younger. The fandom generally assumes Ned's plan for Theon is to wait until Balon dies to then have Theon as a lord friendly to the mainland interests: this makes perfect sense but we never know about it. We never find anything about what future Theon expects, he's not betrothed, obviously we find out when he returns that Balon is actively praying for him to die rather than awaiting the return of his heir for him to finally have a true place etc. but Theon has no way to know the situation at home either because he's only getting letters about the good news. Theon is pretty adaptable - he has some characteristics that make him slightly weird in the islands (preferrence for riding, fancy bitch taste, not used to the different power dynamics, uninterested in religion) and in the North (some romanticization of the Old Way, dark humor) but he does decently in both until he explodes in Winterfell, he's at ease in the Riverlands in the Blackfish' forces, he considers the Night's Watch as an option where he might be decently happy etc. The problem is he's never allowed to hope or prepare for any future, the war of the Five Kings is literally the first time he has any direction in life.

As for Arianne:

The freedom that Prince Oberyn allowed his bastard daughters had never been shared by Prince Doran’s lawful heir. Arianne must wed; she had accepted that. Drey had wanted her, she knew; so had his brother Deziel, the Knight of Lemonwood. Daemon Sand had gone so far as to ask for her hand. Daemon was bastard-born, however, and Prince Doran did not mean for her to wed a Dornishman. Arianne had accepted that as well. One year King Robert’s brother came to visit and she did her best to seduce him, but she was half a girl and Lord Renly seemed more bemused than inflamed by her overtures. Later, when Hoster Tully asked her to come to Riverrun and meet his heir, she lit candles to the Maid in thanks, but Prince Doran had declined the invitation. The princess might even have considered Willas Tyrell, crippled leg and all, but her father refused to send her to Highgarden to meet him. She tried to go despite him, with Tyene’s help... but Prince Oberyn caught them at Vaith and brought them back. That same year, Prince Doran tried to betroth her to Ben Beesbury, a minor lordling who was eighty if he was a day, and as blind as he was toothless.

What we get here is: Arianne has arguably more freedom than any young lady of her rank in the rest of Westeros, but she doesn't perceive it as freedom because while she can make more independent choices for the present about sex, friendships with people of all social ranks, parties etc, the future is both outside her agency AND unknown to her, which are both factors to her dissatisfaction with it. We know Doran means for Arianne to be Viserys' queen consort, Arianne only knows he doesn't mean for her to be princess of Dorne, but she deduces that he must want her to be someone's consort, and she doesn't outright reject this. She courts several heirs, not second sons of rich families willing to back her claim up to expand their influence in Dorne or something. She's willing to work with her father's plan and have her future partially dictated as long as she knows enough to make the best of it. Arianne is a huge people's person, very charming and able to manipulate, does well in her role "in charge of feasts and frolics" etc. and we have absolutely no reason to think she'd be either incapable or miserable as a consort. So the problem here is that Doran, through ridiculous matches he knows she won't accept, is essentially forcing her into a suspended childhood where she can neither plan for a future as princess of Dorne nor for one as consort. And she must lash out against it to have any feeling of agency in her life.

So she does, like Theon, recklessly and daringly and with an initial success that speaks of her cunning and boldness, like Theon, she claims a vengeful motivation towards external forces when really it's to vindicate her place within her own family she wants, like Theon

Asha shook her head. “How could you be such a bloody fool? Children . . .” “They defied me!” he shouted in her face. “And it was blood for blood besides, two sons of Eddard Stark to pay for Rodrik and Maron.” The words tumbled out heedlessly, but Theon knew at once that his father would approve. “I’ve laid my brothers’ ghosts to rest.”

“And what is it I want, ser?”

“The Sand Snakes freed. Vengeance for Oberyn and Elia. Do I know the song? You want a little taste of lion blood.” That, and my birthright. I want Sunspear, and my father’s seat. I want Dorne. “I want justice.”

She fails miserably, like Theon, but how does it end?

On the morning that she left the Water Gardens, her father rose from his chair to kiss her on both cheeks. "The fate of Dorne goes with you, daughter," he said, as he pressed the parchment into her hand. "Go swiftly, go safely, be my eyes and ears and voice... but most of all, take care."

"I will, Father." She did not shed a tear. Arianne Martell was a princess of Dorne, and Dornishmen did not waste water lightly. It was a near thing, though. It was not her father's kisses nor his hoarse words that made her eyes glisten, but the effort that brought him to his feet, his legs trembling under him, his joints swollen and inflamed with gout. Standing was an act of love. Standing was an act of faith.

He believes in me. I will not fail him.

Doran and Arianne's dialogue in The Princess in the Tower is one of the highlights of AFFC for me, it's so heartbreaking. Arianne is able to confront her father about the baggage of the last ten years, which Theon does in the show but not truly in the books. While Doran is understandably disappointed and upset with her, they are able to come to a reconciliation, he slowly comes to admit he wronged her, he admits to her his most fallible, uncautious human feelings, his "heart's desire". He breaks down thinking nostalgically of Arianne as a little girl. More in ADWD: he sees her loyal nature and good intentions in the bad choices she made and defends her:

Obara laughed. “Aye, our sweet Arianne has seen to that.”

The princess flushed, and Hotah saw a spasm of anger pass across her father’s face. “What she did, she did as much for you as for herself. I would not be so quick to mock.”

He even enacts the #1 Theon love language of laughing at her bad jokes :(

The little princess smiled. “Three Oberyns, with teats.”

Prince Doran laughed. It had been so long since Hotah last heard him laugh, he had almost forgotten what it sounded like

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33 notes - Posted March 26, 2022

#3

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33 notes - Posted July 22, 2022

#2

and taken him from his home

day 3 - hostage identity and childhood

35 notes - Posted March 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Prince Bolkonsky is honestly such a funny antagonist in how hard it is to explain how his assholery manifests... Like "in his scene of most heinous and abusive behavior this despicable man expresses the belief women can learn maths too and should choose their husbands independently" "the callous bitch really ruins everyone's life with his stance that his 30 year old son shouldn't marry a teenage girl"

128 notes - Posted February 17, 2022

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