#grrm's elves

[kellyvela]

realmente cree esa persona que los targs forzando a los reinos ancianos de westeros a aceptar el trono de hierro, quemando a los que se les resistieron con sus dragones no es el imperialismo porque *checks notes* esos reinos también se establecieron usando fuerza???? porque no impusieron su idioma???? o sí por supuesto cuando los españoles conquistaron a los azteca o a los inca in fact no fue imperialismo ni colonialismo porque eran imperios también y todavía hay gente que habla nahuatl y quechua so if you think about it realmente eran soberantes bien benevolentes uwu

Yeah that's their logic, they think we can't hate targies for being conquerors and at the same time love the Stark children, because House Stark ancestors, the First Men ("the conquerors"), more like 8000 years ago, were at war with the Children of the Forest ("the conquered"), then we are hypocrites, we need to judge the Stark children, the ones blessed by the Old Gods, the same way we judge targies, the ones that are so proud to be the blood of Old Valyria.

Their takes are so narrow that they didn't stop to think about how the war between the COTF and the First Men ended with a peace treaty, The Pact of the Isle of Faces.

They are very loud about targies not imposing their religion to Westeros, but they didn't mention the Doctrine of Exceptionalism and the "veiled threats" of parading dragons all over the seven Kingdoms.

They are very loud about targies not imposing their mother tongue to Westeros, but they forget to mention that people in Astapor speak High Valyrian with a growl of the old Ghiscari tongue, that people in Yukai speak a dialect of High Valyrian, different from Astapor's, but similar enough, and that people in Meereen speak a bastard form of High Valyrian, blended with Old Ghiscari.

And of course they will never talk about how the First Men, and much later The Starks, adopted the COTF religion, the Old Gods, and not the other way around.

But at leats they're funny, right? They provide free amusement. I will never get over them describing targs as "GRRM's elves." LMAO

[knight--error]

Every month or so, as I perform my daily tasks and live my life as best I can, my mind is assailed, unprovoked, by the remembrance of the time that George R. R. Martin claimed Jamie Lannister could beat Aragorn in a sword fight, after which I am rendered blind, deaf, and babbling by incandescent rage for roughly thirty seconds. After that I'm fine again. Until next month.

[paraphernaliawagon]

headcanons about the incredibly fucked up little Allegory for the British Empire But With Dragons and Evil Gods (As Created by an Extremely British Guy) that i’ve been rotating constantly in my head for over half my life:

-their music is all about the Drone (including of course, ones made by people they’ve enslaved and surgically made into musical instruments. that’s the only musical instrument we know for sure that they have, by the way. as far as i can remember.)

-even though they have almost no taboos about killing or sexuality (i suspect they are homophobic and transphobic so there are significant exceptions) they DO have an incredibly strict taboo about poop. to the extent of writing propaganda medical books to convince the oppressed human underclass that their species doesn’t poop (which is slightly plausible because they’re descended from dragons and are much more different from humans biologically than they appear (ie they get slightly different illnesses and are affected differently by certain drugs). but nobody believes it and it’s a huge joke among the oppressed human underclass (it’s canon that the areas of Imrryr outside the palace are basically 100% immigrants. i wonder a lot about what their lives were like)

creationist voice: “if melniboneans evolved from dragons how come there’s still dragons”

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

This fandom has a disturbing sense of entitlement when it comes to GRRM and his remaining two books. There’s this horrifying lack of empathy towards this man and it’s genuinely scary. People expect him to be like one of those elves from Harry Potter: he just has to turn his magic on and churn out brand new content, who gives a fuck what is going on in his life? Let me remind the audience that this is a guy in his 70s! Yes, he’s rich. But age and its complications bow to nothing. Not to mention that even if his age wasn’t a factor, he could still be dealing with a lot of mental distress that ANY human would? Do you know how deranged you have to be to say that he cannot be affected by losing a close friend? That he, and his writing, cannot be affected by the state of the world? This is a man whose core thesis statement in his work is, “I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things”. One of the core protagonists in this series has dedicated her entire arc to fighting institutional slavery. One another protagonist has spent five books unlearning bigotry and trying to reform institutions that operate on it. ASOIAF fictionalizes real world issues. And to get there, GRRM has to take note of it and then make commentary on it. Like do people listen to themselves??? What is wrong with this fandom dear god…

[neechees]

Actually, Tolkien spends less time describing every detail of his character's physical appearance than you think, so a lot of it can be up for interpretation. But we know for sure that there are Elves with Brown skin. I think GRRM spends more time going in depth about food descriptions for Game of Thrones than Tolkien does talking about how his characters look.

Legolas likely has dark hair in the books. Sam is described as having brown skin at least four times. Decades later & we still don't know if it's Nerdanel or Feanor that has red hair. Most of the time Tolkien will give you a hair color and an eye color, maybe tell you if they're beautiful, and that's it (if that)

[eruhamster]

no like i will die on the hill that kui doesn't get enough praise. and it does kinda make me mad that people suck fujimoto's mid cock so bad for a manga that's one step removed from being a harem manga, when conversations of dungeon meshi largely only revolve around the characters and not about kui herself and what she created.

i am honest to fucking god serious when i say that she is up there with tolkien and grrm in her worldbuilding ability. i am serious when i say this is a once in a generation kind of mangaka. i am serious when i say i really truly hope and think it is possible that dungeon meshi is her dr slump. that it is a popular manga that will be overshadowed by something even greater. i really think that she has that capacity.

she didn't just create the story as she went, though it evolved spectacularly and in ways she has said she didn't expect as she wrote it, but she created a world that felt rich and was clearly decided on long before any of it became relevant, and in ways that weren't relevant and we only see bits of with these post-series bonuses. what she has let us see seems to be only the tip of the iceberg, and even if you reread you begin to notice that there's stuff she clearly had laid out in her mind that we don't know about.

like i thought that weird half-foot that they were trying to sell vegetables to early on was just a one-off dude, but later on i noticed he reappeared with an implication he has a connection to the corruption of the island:

or beyond that, it's just passingly revealed that the queen of the elves lets marcille off the hook because she had done a similar thing in the past:

it's truly amazing. people do not give this woman enough credit. i am so fucking certain that this woman has the potential to be a household name sort of mangaka. the kind who's name immediately comes to mind when people think manga.

[redclaire999]

Brienne question!

So GRRM didn't give us much info about House Tarth, not their words, nothing about the family tree, lots of suggestions perhaps...Duncan the Tall, very blonde, perhaps white/blonde hair, blue perhaps indigo/violet eyes...you see where I'm going.

Anyhoo, question is about the sigil, moon and sun, why not a star? And the title, EvenSTAR-, (related to elves? Arwen? Just cos GRRM likes Tolkien?)

Are all the celestial motifs significant to Brienne's future within the story? If so, in what way?

And...discuss🤣🤓🧐

[bloody-wonder]

starting new series (part two)

oops looks like i started ten more new series so here's another super long bookish post🫢

the series that was so good i'm prioritizing it this year is her instruments by mca hogarth (book one: earthrise). set in the same universe as my beloved cozy sci fi about an interspecies qpp, the dreamhealers, earthrise is a story about a down on her luck captain of a trading spaceship who gets roped into Wacky Hijinks after rescuing a space elf nobleman from space pirates. reese eddings has major stressed millenial going through the quarter life crisis energy so i related to her big time. her crew includes: a lion skunk centauroid, a giant bird that communicates in two word phrases and a pair of horny cat twins. yes, that vintage space opera cover doesn't want you to know it's actually a furry book lol. however, it's not about getting sexy with furries - it's about getting unsexy with space elves. speaking of whomst.

hirianthial is a tall blonde aristocratic space elf doctor and you can't touch him bc that would be too hot and inappropriate (and also he'll read your mind). reese hates him on sight bc he's a beautiful fairytale prince and she's a messy 30+yo who may or may not have been drowning her sorrows in binging space elf romance novels by the dozen. major "how dare you come to me now when i am this" scene from the last unicorn vibes. wouldn't it be embarrassing if reese's ulcer burst from anxiety and bad eating habits while they're being chased by the pirates and mr perfect had to operate on her esophagus? what a unique meet cute would that be!

lol to sum it up: i ship it, the furry crew ships it, reese is kicking and screaming refusing to accept that she's the heroine in a romance book, hirianthial manages to maintain his space elf mystique and keep calling her "lady" despite the fact that she's being a horrible little gremlin towards him and taking out all her issues on this poor man. the pacing of the romance is extremely slow, just the way i like it. one could even say this first book doesn't at all contain what an average romance reader would call "romance" - it's more about hirianthial becoming part of the crew during their various misadventures and reese learning to accept that fact. and about the horrors of meeting a very hot guy who is able to know all your deepest insecurities just from touching you. i can't blame reese, i would be cranky too😅

☝️that's me throwing away whatever you were planning to read next and bringing her instruments to your attention

series i'm going to continue next year (or whenever somebody finds time to finish writing his series):

a targaryen history by george rr martin (book one: fire & blood). as you might know, asoiaf is my favorite fantasy series of all time but i was hesitant to read this prequel lore book bc i was afraid i wouldn't like grrm's writing as much now that i've become much more well-read in fantasy and, more importantly, bc i didn't like the first season of hotd. luckily it turns out my appreciation for grrm's writing and worldbuilding is as strong as ever and maaan i just love the targaryens. i just think they're neat. they just want to marry brother to sister, you know🙂 i surprised myself by how much i enjoyed the history book format of fire & blood with its successive generations of kings and queens, multiple unreliable narrators and versions of events, trying to make sense of long gone triumphs and tragedies in hindsight. which i think is also the reason i didn't vibe with the show - it takes away this sweeping epic scope of the book, the weight of the centuries, the unrelenting pendulum of time, with individual fates nothing but blades of grass ground under the wheels of history etc etc and doesn't, in my opinion, manage to compensate for it by fleshing out the protagonists of the dance of the dragons enough for me to be able to get invested in their personal stories. i hope i'll like the second season more but i'm gonna keep my expectations low for now. i mean, it doesn't even have mushroom🍄‍🟫

the neapolitan novels by elena ferrante (book one: my brilliant friend). didn't expect to like this one so much either. most of it is good but not great - a very truthful depiction of girlhood and adolescent female friendships with their camaraderies and rivalries, a good exploration of struggling to access education as a way out of poverty, an atmospheric setting in the 50s naples - but then near the end there's a chapter where the author manages to encapsulate the characters' journeys and throw into relief the themes of the book so masterfully in so few words, using such simple yet impactful visual metaphors, i literally froze while listening to it in the audiobook and then paused whatever i was doing to sit down and reread it with my own eyes. i'm not a prose girlie so i'm rarely so impressed by an isolated piece of writing (the last time it happened was the epilogue of assassin's apprentice, as far as i remember). anyways, i obviously can't discuss it further bc of spoilers but to put it briefly ferrante succeeded in getting to the core of that special bond you shared with your teenage best friend and somehow managed to distill the essence of girlhood friendships into one single scene. chapter 57: if you know - you know🫠

the alexander trilogy by mary renault (book one: fire from heaven). when i finished the lymond chronicles several people recced mary renault's books to me bc they're also queer historical novels written around the same time (so 60-70s) - but having read the charioteer and now this first alexander book i conclude that those are their only similarities. dunnett's writing style couldn't be more different from renault's and, to be completely honest, i find the latter one extremely boring. madeline miller is actually a much better comp for renault (including the questionable depiction of female characters), except the song of achilles could at least be more explicit about the queer love story. not that i'm measuring the quality of these books by how smutty they are - in fact, the only thing i liked in fire from heaven was how renault managed to write around the scenes of gay sex while also making sure we know what's happening. anyways, normally i would just dnf a series where i was so unimpressed with the first book but as far as i understand the persian boy is really the main course here so i'll read that and then, who am i kidding, i will also read the last book in the trilogy bc of completionism. and tbh i'm not yet ready to let go of the image of myself as an elegant dark academia girlie reading classy mary renault books about ancient greece🧐

series i'm maybe going to continue sometime in the future:

london calling by alexis hall (book one: boyfriend material). enjoyed this first book much more than i expected, given that cartoon cover contemporary romance is very much out of my comfort zone and fake dating is one of my most disliked tropes. ig i just like the british humor of it all and that it really felt like those old nostalgic romcoms hall says he was inspired by. i would've liked to see oliver grapple more with how his parents fucked him up but maybe this is explored more in the sequel? which i'm hesitant to read bc it has an abysmal average rating on goodreads😬 i mean it could mean anything: maybe people are correct in that this story didn't need a sequel or maybe we're just unused to there being more to love stories after the characters get together, including more problems. alexis hall is a total discovery for me this year, i think i trust him to make it good, esp given that there really aren't any queer romance series like this out there, focused on a couple going through all the conventional stages of a relationship (dating, marriage, parenthood). but on the other hand i'd really like to hear an opinion from someone i know. so: did any of you read husband material? did you hate it too?👀

chrestomanci by diana wynne jones (book one: charmed life). this was just fine. i like wynne jones' writing and humor but i think this is the kind of book you should've read as a kid. as an adult i can't connect to its themes and characters anymore but what i can do with my adult brain is discern fatphobia🫤 seriously, this is the third time i see fatphobia in wynne jones' books - just small things that upset me and take me out of the story. wtf mam. anyways, i didn't think this book had anything interesting to offer, compared to howl's moving castle with its iconic characters or fire and hemlock with its wtf did i just read, so i was ready to dnf this series but then just the other day i saw a tumblr poll of people voting for their favorite chrestomanci book and the lives of christopher chant won in a landslide. so ig i'll read that just to be sure and then probably move on to the dalemark quartet or smth. i have an inkling i'd like a chrestomanci book focused on a different (cooler) protag more but i'm not going to prioritize it.

the tarot sequence by kd edwards (book one: the last sun). okay this one is a big maybe. like i mentioned before, i just don't like urban fantasy but i decided to try this series nevertheless bc it's so popular on queer booklr and i like to be in the know. and indeed the only thing i'm mildly intrigued by is the slowburn bodyguard romance - so slow in fact that the main guy has a completely different love interest in the first book. will i suffer through chapters upon chapters of boring urban fantasy politics just for the sake of this romance tho? not any time soon.

series i'm not going to continue:

the saint of steel by t kingfisher (book one: paladin's grace). i'm starting to suspect t kingfisher is not our blessed niche tumblr fantasy but in fact their barbarous mainstream award winning fantasy. what in the name of heterosexual lucifer was this?? lol i mean it's not a bad book or anything, ig i just didn't vibe with the religious aspect of the worldbuilding and, more importantly, the romance here is the textbook example of what i dislike in this genre: just two people being horny for each other from the moment they meet. i mean ik this is what it's like for allosexuals irl but when i see this in a book it just seems like lazy writing. the book opens with the most ridiculous meet cute ever (suffice it to say, nobody's esophagus was even involved) and if i were a normal person i would've dnfed right then and there but i forced myself to trudge through pages and pages of these two repressed middle aged people lusting after each other in cursive. which i understand is very relatable content for some readers but ig i could confirm yet again that hetero women's fantasies are not my fantasies. i finally finished it yesterday and picked up her intruments book two right away as a palate cleanser bc, as me and my book bestie like to joke, i don't want any romance in my romance lol. i was somewhat underwhelmed by thornhedge last year so i'm not really interested in kingfisher's novellas either. ig i could try other books from the white rat universe, the ones not focused on horny paladins, but maybe i shoud just accept that this author is not for me🤷‍♀️

the adventures of amina al-sirafi by shannon chakraborty. the city of brass was one of the most disappointing books i read last year but i wanted to give this author another try bc on paper her newest book seemed like the most up my alley story ever: potc are my favorite movies of all time, i completely support the middle aged woman protag agenda and if there is a thing i liked about chakraborty's writing it's that she's not afraid of setting her stories in the real historical periods of our own world and doing the research accordingly instead of just being "inspired" by foreign cultures and time periods. so i was very determined to like this book but unfortunately it didn't work out. you see, in a good fantasy adventure novel characters, plot and worlbuilding work in unison to tell a cohesive story - here on the other hand these three elements felt separate from each other. the characters seemed more like those tumblr posts showing little oc arts and listing their character traits under them than full-fledged dynamic fictional people with a function in the story. their motivation to go on an adventure and to move the plot forward, as it were, never seemed personal and important enough for me to be invested in their success. instead of serving the plot, the worldbuilding and the lore chakraborty researched and constructed so painstakingly derailed the story more often than not. as a result, halfway through the book i'm still waiting for the author to make me care about this team of misfits and the random girl they're searching but instead i'm hit over the head with the bird people island. sigh. but the biggest disappointment was ofc the demon husband😑 you can do so many sexy things with a problematic demon husband but ig chakraborty just has a unique talent for coming up with sexy ideas and bad boy love interests and then making them completely unsexy in her books. well ig i successfully confirmed this author is not for me and i won't try any of her books anymore.

the scholomance by naomi novik (book one: a deadly education). this book was released right around the time i started watching booktube so i vividly remember the controversy surrounding it. at first everybody seemed to hate it but later, when the sequels came out, there was a new wave of readers who liked the series a lot. i'm a big fan of spinning silver and uprooted (not to mention novik's work in otw) and i'm not immune to gritty magic schools by any means so i decided to give it a go. sadly, this turned out to be another dud. i have a sneaking suspicion this story was a much better piece of fiction in its past life as a drarry fanfic, before novik frankensteined it into a perfunctorily diverse, heteronormative, commercialized ya version of hp. i couldn't appreciate the worldbuilding bc it was delivered through a series of the most aggressive exposition dumps ever so the concept of this edgy school that wants to kill you just seemed silly to me. the romance was meh and the fact that i recently read in other lands that does a similar pseudo-hero/pseudo-villain dynamic much better didn't do it any favors either. i liked the abrasive personality of the main character but not so much as to force myself to continue this series in case it gets better. i'll start reading novik's dragon books instead.

2024 reading updates | goodreads

[notquiteaghost]

isaac, infodumping at length to me about asoiaf: and further north is the wall, and behind the wall are the others, and they can turn corpses into mindless soldiers and they want to kill everyone–

me, interrupting: i want to know absolutely everything about them. i want the books to be about them. what is their deal i am obsessed

isaac: ah. well. so that's basically all we know,

me: incredibly rude of grrm but okay. tell me more about the targaryens then i guess

me, later, infodumping about the witcher: okay so the way magic works is weird because no one but the dwarves and gnomes are native to this dimension & humans have only been here a millenia and a half & they have to kinda cheat to use magic–

isaac, interrupting: wait they're not native to this dimension?

me: yeah they're possibly from earth, which is somewhere else. the continent has these weird big spire things that are in some way connected to other dimensions. elves arrived in ships tho

isaac: what. what. i need so much more information holy shit what do you mean the humans killed almost all the elves if they basically only just got there

me: well. see. yknow how asoiaf wont answer my others questions?

isaac: dammit. rude. tell me about the mages then, i guess

[agentrouka-blog]

Cannot believe people seriously Gendrya or J/B or J/C is the main romance of the series. Gendry does not even have a pov. He is a tertiary character. Jaime, Cersei and Brienne are secondary characters. There is NO way they would ever constitute any central pairing. Why do people like to act so dense istg? It would absolutely be Jon and one of his three female relatives, the three main female characters. This is basic common sense.

Don't you understand that part of the shocking revelations GRRM has in store for us is the subtly hidden and controversial message that incest is bad?

He would NEVER dabble in exploring the greyness of a relationship that has a taboo attached that is inherently justified but not inherently based on abuse of power. GRRM hates when things are grey. He talks about it all the time. It's also not a theme in the literature of the Romantic Period, or the Arthuriana he's so fond of. Byronic heroes and incest? LOL, never!

And he would certainly never even contemplate creating a scenario where the incest issue has a "technically, it's legal" escape clause based on the revelation of someone's true parentage. The fact that this exact scenario is in the discarded "original outline" as an explicit plotline for Jon Snow is proof that GRRM would never do that. It would never cross his mind to do that.

The only incest GRRM approves of, anyway, would be Targaryen incest between actual aunt and nephew, because they are the chosen elves of ASOIAF.

Get with it, anon. ASOIAF has no romance, and if it does, it's definitely going to involve a Lannister, a third-tier non-POV, or a symbolically charged physical union in a magically transcendent bioluminiscently veiled location between at least two people the fandom likes to associate with triple-headed flamethrower-riding.

Or the unspeakable verbal violence and controversial erotic charge of ship metaphors for the participants' intimate physicality.

[kellyvela]

*I love the Starks as much as the next person* said the one that in a previous message accused Sansa of poisoning her little cousin.

*but saying that them (The Starks, according to you?), conquering and murdering those who sing the song of the earth is OK because it happened 8000 years ago is disrespectful (...)* The Stark children didn't do that, that was my point mentioning the more than 8000 years that separate the war between the COTF & the First Men and the events happening in the main ASOIAF Books.

I focused my answers in the Stark children and also mentioned how the war between the COTF & the First Men (House Stark ancestors) a couple of times, so maybe you would re-read that part of TWOIAF and realize how that war actually developed and the reasons why it ended in a peace treaty.

You hate the Andals? OK, but try to not confuse them with the First Men. You also love "GRRM's elves"? Kinda contradictory but also OK, because this is fiction.

Yeah, this is fiction and I don't get why are you mixing and confusing fiction with reality so much????

What I said about the Stark children and the war between the COTF & the First Men, is disrespectful to whom??? Again, this is fiction, this is high fantasy somehow based on History here and there, it has nothing to do directly with real life or real History. I don't even believe your sad tragic story because you started insulting me, calling me a lot of names, and then telling me I was scared of answering your consecutive mesagges because I'm sure you were desperately expecting my answer while I was probably living my best life or sleeping. And you even mentioned God . . . . So now that the insults didn't work you come with this kind of what? Gaslighting, guilt-tripping or something?

I won't magically start loving "GRRM's elves," just because it seems to be your personal crusade to make me change my mind or make me feel bad about not worshipping your fave Asoiaf characters.

*Please speak with more care* said the troll crying, insulting me, and trying to manipulate me in my inbox . . . .

[jackoshadows]

I do remember that GRRM said he wants the books to have a bittersweet ending like Lord of the Rings. Okay Lord of the Rings… the only Fellowship member who died was Boromir. The reason the ending was bittersweet was because sweet: Sauron was finally defeated for good, Aragorn became King like he was born to be, the Hobbits were recognized as heroes of Middle Earth, peace was restored. But bitter: Frodo’s wound never fully healed, the Fellowship was ended and they went their separate ways, Frodo and Gandalf and Bilbo and the Elves all leave Middle Earth never to return (man Gandalf saying goodbye always makes me cry). Perfect bittersweet. Which makes me think… GRRM won’t have any of the Key Five die (Dany, Jon, Arya, Bran, and Tyrion). Sweet: They will become the heroes of the Realm as the ones who played a huge part in destroying the Others. And they’ll survive and be able to live good lives. But bitter because they’re gonna have trauma to deal with forever, many of the people they knew died, and it will be a LONG time before Westeros and Essos are back to normal. I do not know if Jon and Dany will become King and Queen like I want but that would be part of the sweet. Still if they all survive, the Key Five, that’s really all I need. And I know Jonsas won’t be stopping with their bs but I would take immense pleasure knowing that they were wrong and their dumb theories were all proven false

@whitedragonwolf4961 Sorry for replying to your ask after a looooong time!

So yeah, I personally think that the key 5 will survive. I base this off the story so far in five books and also on GRRM's leaked 1993 original outline for the story, considering he has always insisted that he is heading towards his 1991 ending.

In the leaked outline, all of the key five survive. GRRM admits to using main characters like Ned, Robb and Catelyn to get the readers thinking that anyone can die while there's a set of characters - the key 5 - who will make it through all of the OG trilogy.

And yes, what would make it bittersweet would be the deaths of loved ones, friends and family, the large scale destruction that they would need to rebuild, their ongoing trauma - they have all gone through so much in these 5 books - the sacrifices they would need to make, the compromises. In that sense it's not going to be wholly happy - they are not going to come out in the end unscathed. Jon Snow has even died and we don't even know what version is coming back!!

And remember, reform and change is a major aspect of these characters:

Five central characters will make it through all three volumes, however, growing from children to adults and CHANGING THE WORLD and themselves in the process. In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women. The five key players are Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and three of the children of Winterfell, Arya, Bran, and the bastard Jon Snow. All of them are introduced at some length in the chapters you have to hand.

The Key 5 have big political arcs, are involved in major events and are proactively in control of their own subplots in the books. The youngsters in particular - Dany, Jon, Arya and Bran - are angry about injustice and want to change how things are always done. Dany and Jon have big leadership arcs which are particularly about reforming city states and institutions. Arya's arc with the smallfolk is about her connection with them and the injustice they are facing. As Prince of Winterfell, Bran's empathy for his bastard brother Jon Snow means he signals that Lord Hornwood's bastard can be heir to the Hornwood lands.

I think that's the difference between the previous generation and the current one is that now our main characters don't look past terrible stuff happening and justify it in the name of 'I didn't know' while looking the other way or 'The oaths make it so I should let bad things happen' or 'This is how it's always been so let it happen'. They look past class and gender barriers and do things differently.

And after the Long Night, is when major reform and rebuilding needs to happen. Westeros needs leaders who are angry about what the smallfolk are experiencing, who put the people first, who have the leadership experience to rebuild and reform, in administration and politics and diplomacy, who can build bridges and enact laws - and GRRM has written all that for the key 5.

If they die at the end, then what's the point? So yes, they are very much surviving - in some form or other - though I suspect there will be a lot of sacrifice and compromise that will indeed be very bitter, precisely because good leaders/rulers care about the realm.

[darklinaforever]

Daemyra from GRRM reminds me a lot of Eöl & Aredhel from Tolkien. In the sense that both relationships seem to have been primarily distorted by propaganda. “Fire and Blood” and “The Silmarillon” both being a collection of so-called “historical” stories for their respective universes, written by people from the universe in question.

For the Dance of Dragons, it is the pro-Greens maesters who mainly write the story, hating Rhaenyra, obviously because of the misogyny. And Daemon, because of the prejudices against him, Otto obviously, because Daemon is from the Blacks team ; Him being the greatest supporter, defender and not to mention, Rhaenyra's husband himself.

Then, for the story of Eöl & Aredhel, it is said that Eöl fell in love with Aredhel upon seeing her wandering the woods, essentially kidnapping her and marrying her by force. Except that their history is written by the Noldor, including one from Godolin, where Aredhel, sister of the king, comes from, who write the story. However, you should know that one of the important laws on marriage among the Noldor is to ask consent from both families beforehand. Generally, no marriage is refused because elves marry for love and see little point in doing so otherwise. But not asking for the family's agreement is very badly received by the Noldor. In this story we therefore have an Elf, Eöl, who according to the version is a Sindar, or an Avari pimp, who marries a Noldor princess without asking her family's consent, which is necessarily very frowned upon by the Noldor, so the people who write the story. Then with Aredhel's character and it is clearly specified that she could ride alone on her side, it's hard to believe that she would not have run away if the marriage had not been agreed at all on her side. If the girl stands up to her brother the king, loses his guards and finds her way back, why the hell would she let herself be fooled by a stranger she met in the woods ? Add to all this a small note in a text, which could suggest that an Elf would not survive a rape, her spirit preferring to leave her body to join the halls of Mandos rather than undergo that (afterwards this is my interpretation). So if it is a forced marriage there is necessarily rape, and therefore Aredhel should not have survived the union with Eöl.

So, if we combine all of that ; the non-respect of marriage traditions among the Noldor, the writing of the story by a wise man from Godolin and a tragic end, well we can assume that the Noldor who wrote this story were very bitter and saw in Eöl a monster guilty of the worst atrocities from the start.

From my point of view, the two fell in love, got together, but their relationship deteriorated over time to end in the tragedy we know. This is where, on the other hand, it diverges from Daemyra for me in terms of tragedy, because for me, their story ended with a misunderstanding, Daemon having certainly never cheated on Rhaenyra with Nettles, in more beyond that, Daemon having never harmed Rhaenyra and having always been on her side, unlike Eöl who will end up harming / kill Aredhel. (Even if yes, killing Aredhel was an accident, let's not forget that Eöl was basically aiming to kill their own son and Aredhel intervened, taking the blow in his place)

This is all probably a very controversial opinion, but it's mine.

[stormcloudrising]

I was wondering if you have any metas discussing the white walker threat. Or maybe know of any that you like? There’s so much content about Dany and the Fire threat and what GRRM is saying with it. But most of what I’ve seen about the Ice/white walkers is like “oh, it’s global warming” and then nothing deeper really.

Hi Nonny,

Thanks for the interesting ask. I tried to answer a couple of nights ago and accidentally deleted my response, which I think was much better than this one. I tried to remember everything I wrote but no doubt, I forgot some things and my second response is not as concise.

I have not written any in-depth metas on the White Walkers/Others yet. I add that caveat because the topic of the Others will play a big role in the final two parts of my Florian and Jonquil series.

The Others and their motivation are the great mystery that’s been hanging over the series since the opening prologue of AGOT. What do they want? Why are they back? Basically, what’s their motivation?

I will say that I don’t think it’s that they want to extinguish all known life to get rid of memory as was D&D’s BS explanation on the show. However, I do think that it’s possible they want to prevent humans from entering the weirwoods, and so on some level, their motivation maybe about wanting to get rid of the memory of the trees. It isn’t, as the show suggested to arbitrarily kill all living men. 

Nonetheless, even though D&D’s writing was atrocious once they moved past the books, and their explanation for the Others made no sense, I do think that they dropped many hints on the show about actual upcoming events in the books. This is what made their writing doubly horrible. They knew the actual outcome of the books but didn’t have the interest in putting in the effort and time to do the story justice simply because they wanted to move on to another project. 

I think that when TWOW comes out, fans will look back on the show and say, oh, that’s why D&D did that nonsense that made no sense. And yes, I do think that there is a very strong chance we get TWOW, but unless George is lying to us and he’s writing both books before making the publication announcement, I don’t think that we will ever get ADOS. 

However, there will likely be enough in TWOW to allow fans to extrapolate the ending of the series. The funny thing is that Dan and Dave may think and hope that fans may look more positively upon the things they did on the show, but, if possible, it will be even worse for them as fans will call them out even more for not following through on all the beats in George’s story.

George doesn’t write evil for evil’s sake ala Sauron and the Orcs. He also doesn’t write characters that are purely good like the Hobbits and the Elves who purpose is simply to oppose the evil villains. He, as he has said on multiple occasions, writes about the human heart in conflict. 

This says to me that there is much more to the story of the NK, the Others, and their motivation than is currently suggested on the page or from the mouths of characters. I suspect that their motivation will be more like that of Ineluki and the Sithi from Tad Williams’ Memory Sorrow and Thorn that George has said inspired him to write ASOIAF.

My other reason for thinking that there is more to the Others than meets the eyes is because their legend is closely connected to House Stark, and let’s face it, the Starks are the central protagonists of the story. 

This is not to say that past, current, and future Starks have not done, and will not do some arguably dark deeds that may surprise fans. They certainly will.  This is more obviously foreshadowed in Arya’s arc, but it’s there for Bran, and strongly for Jon and Sansa as well. Revenge is a dish best served cold after all.  

If you have read any of my essays, particularly my Florian and Jonquil series, you know that I’ve proposed that those two ancient characters were the NK and CQ and leader of the Others, and that the same will be true of Jon and Sansa. This may sound as sacrilegious to some as saying Dany will be the major villain at the end sounds to other parts of the fandom. Nevertheless, I think both will be the case.

I’ll be going into this idea in more detail in my last two chapters of the Florian and Jonquil series, but I propose that George has been setting up Jon and Sansa as the NK/CQ since the first book. Originally, I think the plan was for Jon and Arya to play those roles, but somewhere in the writing of AGOT, he switched it to be Jon and Sansa.

In my opinion, he’s been dropping clues since AGOT and has up the quotient in AFFC and ADWD, as well as the Alayne preview chapter from TWOW. These clues include Jon’s murder at the Wall; placing Sansa in the Vale; her coming up with the idea of Winged Knights to protect Sweet Robin to mirror the Kingsguard, and the little boy’s request that there be 8 instead of 7; the fact that Jon and Sansa are the only two starklings referred to as the Blood of Winterfell; Ghost and Shade; making them both bastards; and Harry asking for Sansa’s favor to name just a few.

George is an expert at wordplay as is the case with any good writer. He uses play on words throughout the text in most interesting ways where a sentence or passage can have double meaning. He does this in the Alayne preview chapter for TWOW when Harry the Heir asks Sansa for her favor the night before the Tourney begins.

He has good teeth, she thought, straight and white. And when he smiles, he has the nicest dimples. She ran one finger down his cheek. "Should we ever wed, you'll have to send Saffron back to her father. I'll be all the spice you'll want."

He grinned. "I will hold you to that promise, my lady. Until that day, may I wear your favor in the tourney?"

"You may not. It is promised to...another." She was not sure who as yet, but she knew she would find someone. —TWOW, Alayne I

George loves to use ellipses to indicate information is missing and to make the reader wonder what he might be hiding. Sansa tells Harry that her favor and all that implies is promised to another, or in other words…pun fully intended, her favor is promised to *an Other. *

There is another bit of wordplay in the same chapter that tips to Sansa being the CQ as well and this time it comes from Petyr.  Sansa the Chthonic Persephone character of the story descends to the underground granary, a symbolic underworld where the wheat is being stored for the winter. Here she meets with the pseudo-Hades and we get this dialogue.

“Yes," she said, "but he thinks that I'm a bastard."

"A beautiful bastard, and the Lord Protector's daughter." Petyr drew her close and kissed her on both cheeks. "The night belongs to you, sweetling, Remember that, always."—TWOW, Alayne I

The night belongs to Sansa. Interesting wordplay when you consider the tale Old Nan told the kids about the Night King. More importantly for this brief analysis is a certain part of her tale Bran remembers when at the Nightfort.

No, Bran thought, but he walked in this castle, where we'll sleep tonight. He did not like that notion very much at all. Night's King was only a man by light of day, Old Nan would always say, but the night was his to rule. And it's getting dark. —ASOS, Bran IV

When you consider all the clues tying Sansa to the CQ, one can see how the comment by Petyr, just as the new Long Night is about to fall mirrors the one Old Nan told to Bran. The NK was a man by day, but the night was his to rule…suggesting as LML and others have proposed, the night he ruled was the Long Night. And he did not rule alone, he had a queen by his side.

So, the night belongs to Sansa, and the night is also destined to be ruled by the NK who was also the Lord Commander of the Nights Watch, and the brother of the man who brought him down. See where I’m going.

Old Nan is right. It is getting dark, because winter is coming and the king and queen of the Long Night shall rule.

Regarding other metas about the Others, LML has a few theories, which you can find on his YouTube channel here. Sweetsunray is another person who has put forth some interesting hypothesis on her blog. LML’s theories are based on mythological symbolism, while Sweetsunray is partially centered around George’s previous writings in his Thousand World universe. I don’t necessarily agree with all their theories, but they are certainly thought provoking and worth a listen and or read.

Again, thanks for the ask.

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

More recently, the dominant fandom narrative that’s been cropping up is the idea that ASOIAF isn’t a nihilist story but is instead a rather romantic story at its core. Or better yet, fans have come to accept that while it takes a more realistic approach to medieval fantasy, ASOIAF is essentially a tale about earned romanticism.

In the same story with Roose Bolton and Tywin Lannister, we have Davos Seaworth and Ned Stark and Brienne. The same story with dangerous ice elves who ride the waves of winter to threaten humanity with death and enslavement has characters like Bran Stark whose soul in animal form is called Summer (the opposite of winter) and Daenerys Targaryen who is the mother of dragons (representing heat and passion and life) and a liberator of slaves. So the idea that even in the face of evil and darkness, goodness and light still exist and will eventually prevail, right?

Ok. 

So tell me why people then use death and tragedy to define Jon Snow and his story even though he’s morally closer to Brienne, Ned, and Davos, and shares the same magical destiny as Bran and Dany? Why do people keep ascribing tragic endings to him and say he has the most probability to die (where are these statistics coming from)? Or they say that because he dies at the end of ADWD, then he’ll also die at the end of the story?

Jon’s death and resurrection (which happens during winter, mind you) is the idea of life everlasting. Even in death, life will continue to persevere. Jon’s great destiny is to fight the Others. It’s why GRRM made him the main POV in that magical war. His arc has always been related to the greater conflict that is coming. So Jon’s death and return to life is also going to be related to that conflict, right? 

See as the Others come riding the winds of winter, death follows. Of course this will affect the world. People may die and the land and its fertility might die as well, but ever persevering is the dream for spring. The dream that after a period of death and darkness and winter, life and light and spring will be restored. Jon, the main POV in the fight against the Others so far, is the embodiment of that. 

The next book is called The Winds of Winter and we can expect death and devastation to follow, but we can also expect new life to emerge. That new life is Jon Snow’s resurrection. He will be reborn and will gain new life in spite of winter. Jon’s rebirth in this book is a mirror of the life that will eventually be restored to the land after winter. Jon is literally a dream for spring and it’s actually quite poignant that these words are only ever said in his POV.

And, Jon’s mythological parallels are usually about life after a period of death. Usually there is death and sacrifice but then there is the promise of everlasting life that comes after. Jon is connected to spring and fertility and rebirth! 

He is the Corn King, a fertility god who dies and is reborn to bring about the rejuvenation of the land (spring). He is Persephone whose descent into the underworld is accompanied by winter, but whose ascent back to the world of the living brings about the spring. Other mythical parallels like Osiris are presented as gods of fertility who are connected to the promise of life after death. Not to mention the obvious messianic undertones that are everywhere in his story; a savior who dies in the place of his people and is reborn to ensure that they too see life after death. It goes on and on but a majority of the mythological influences in Jon’s story have to do with the concept of fertility and vegetation; NOT death.

So as I see it, the struggle between life and death is personified with Jon Snow. Jon’s death at the end of ADWD coincides with winter arriving in Westeros. But then he won’t stay dead because he will be brought back to life; though we’re not sure how it will happen, only that Jon will have a chance at rebirth. 

And Jon will be reborn during winter. Isn’t the idea then that even in the face of death, life prevails? That’s why it’s so thematically relevant that as the cold sweeps through Westeros, a bastard boy is brought back to life near the lands of winter so he can then beat back death. It’s what makes Jon the King of Winter. Not that he represents death but rather that he conquers it.

It’s thematically meaningful for Jon, one of the main heroes of the story, to actually wrestle with death and come out on top. So him dying again at the end of the story or having a tragic end, what’s the point of that? How does that track with the current thematic elements in the story? Yes, this is even if he is to die in an act of self-sacrifice. Jon has already done that at the end of ADWD. What will a second death show that hasn’t been done with the first one? What new understanding will we gain of the character?

I don’t understand why this fandom goes out of its way to deny Jon the romanticism that they ascribe to other characters, even though GRRM puts him at the heart of that struggle between life and death. It’s so vital that out of all the prophesied heroes in the story, Jon is the one who literally tastes death but ultimately defeats it through resurrection. Eventually, that has to mean something to the larger themes presented in the story.

So the point is not that Jon died. The point is that he died but did not stay that way. He lived. The boy lived. So stop using death to define Jon’s story!

[ghostofashina]

not #that person bothering your properly tagged anti targaryen post because how come the "GRRM's elves" being blond purists makes them naz*-coded and blabla. meanwhile, grrm:

(https://href.li/?https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/2777)

[Are the children of the forest like elves, and are there other races besides them?]

No, no elves. The children are... well, the children.

Westeros has its giants too, so there are other races in my world. But no elves. Elves have been done to death.

It was a matter of time, we knew it. And the fact they can't even read to what it was related to and keep coming with whataboustim all the time. "bUt wHaT aBoUt tHe StArKs" yeah, what about it.

Funny thing you mentioned elves, because GRRM really doesn't consider elves nor nothing like that, but Linda literally ignored his statement and decided to justify that eugeny with comparing the blondies to elves (when we know there's nothing that recquires elves to be white and blonde)

I think it's funny to think their fandom like to say they are the elves of westeros when a person like this thinks the same.