#i feel bad for her tbh; she's meant to be a polarizing character so i def see both sides! but also /ouch/...

[lacunafiction]

If it turns out Ms Verner is, deep down, as adorable as her son, I'm gonna pull my hair out by its roots and flap it in the wind

Hi Anon,

Lol, her adorableness would have to be very deep down. 😌

I personally do hold a degree of affection for her.

That's because I know what she went through to become how she is, and I also outlined/created the TFS prequel that features a younger Ms. V as one of the key characters you interact (and can flirt? befriend? 👀) with. (I only give the barest hints about it here in my About since it will naturally need to come later in the series. I have a lot of love for it though; Fernweh's tangled roots run very deep.) 🌲

That being said, you will be getting some special insight on Ms. Verner in Book Two.

Best wishes! 💚

[bbygirl-aemond]

You may already be aware, but I actually found ppl going back and forth on Reddit about a post you'd made on here (re Viserys being a shite parent). It's under r/HouseOfTheDragon in case you ever wanted to check it out. I just recognized your name, as I follow you and it was shared as a screenshot from here.

lmao i will never get over how wild reposting on the internet actually is. that fucker has over a thousand comments and i had no idea until you told me just now! literally made a reddit account to try to add my voice to the din just to encourage people to discuss on the original platform so i can see but tbh people on reddit are a lot meaner than tumblr so i won't be mad if it doesn't get too many upvotes.

reddit's responses to this post is such an interesting case study in the polarization that's happening everywhere online. i get SO MANY accusations of being wildly biased from supporters of both "teams" all the time and it's funny because like am i too team green or too team black bc i can't be both right? mostly i think it's because people get really defensive when you criticize a character and assume it means you hate them. like bruh we are adults with big girl emotions can't it be a little more complex than that?

when i say i think viserys is a bad parent, i'm not saying it as team green propaganda. i've said before that rhaenyra is the rightful ruler and that i absolutely adore her as a character (let's just say aemond isn't my only babygirl). there's a reason i've written 100k+ words of fanfic designing a political scenario where she'll be able to happily rule without any of her children dying. spoiler alert: it's not because i hate her and think she's a bad ruler. and she's far from the only character on team black i love: daemon, jacaerys, lucerys, and baela all come to mind.

it's also really interesting to me that people see my opinion about viserys and, even though i literally did not mention rhaenyra, assume that i'm somehow shitting on her. it just goes to show how much they stand blindly by one team or another. that to criticize one member of their "team" feels to them like you're criticizing every member. like baby, i'm not the one making it about teams: you are! honestly, i understand why the team mentality was a good marketing move, but it really has been the death of critical thinking in this fandom. there are aspects of both that we're meant to root for, just as there are aspects of both we're meant to hate. none of these people are objectively morally good, and that's what makes it interesting, so why are we trying to pretend otherwise?

so while yes, i don't like viserys, why would i extend that dislike to rhaenyra? it's not like she forced him at gunpoint to do the things i'm criticizing him for lol. in fact, i think viserys did her just as dirty most of the time. i have another post in the works about this, but he neglected her for her entire childhood, groomed her best friend and dealt with telling her in the worst possible way, and made her heir in a bid for her affection yet did none of the actual work to honor her as a ruler. he could have made her his hand but instead he made her pour his wine?

now, again, just because we dislike part of something does not mean it's all bad. do i think viserys is generally quite a bad parent and person? absolutely. did i also cry ugly tears in the scene where he forces himself up from his literal deathbed to defend his daughter? yes. these two things can coexist.

also, because reddit is reddit, there are a bunch of comments that just miss my point about alicent and aemma entirely. i've already responded to those in a post here so i won't beat a dead horse too much. but to paraphrase: viserys married alicent because he liked her specifically not for duty or he would've married someone who wouldn't horrify the entire small council; and aemma didn't need to be alive and conscious for the pain she was put through at the end of her life. the things he did to his wives weren't necessary and i don't think we should be pretending they were.

lastly, it's really funny to me how many people incorrectly assumed i was a man in the comments. i'm genuinely the girliest girl to ever girl in real life (makeup jewelry and tits to the gods, sorority girly, the whole nine yards, i love it) and it gave me such whiplash. there's a joke to be made here about trying to weaponize male privilege somewhere.

[qqueenofhades]

Re: the post you reblogged about Bush. I'm 21 and tbh feel like I can only vote for Bernie, can you explain if/why I shouldn't? Thanks and sorry if this is dumb or anything.

Oh boy. Okay, I’ll do my best here. Note that a) this will get long, and b) I’m old, Tired, and I‘m pretty sure my brain tried to kill me last night. Since by nature I am sure I will say something Controversial ™, if anyone reads this and feels a deep urge to inform me that I am Wrong, just… mark it down as me being Wrong and move on with your life. But also, really, you should read this and hopefully think about it. Because while I’m glad you asked this question, it feels like there’s a lot in your cohort who won’t, and that worries me. A lot.

First, not to sound utterly old-woman-in-a-rocking-chair ancient, people who came of age/are only old enough to have Obama be the first president that they really remember have no idea how good they had it. The world was falling the fuck apart in 2008 (not coincidentally, after 8 years of Bush). We came within a flicker of the permanent collapse of the global economy. The War on Terror was in full roar, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were at their height, we had Dick Cheney as the cartoon supervillain before we had any of Trump’s cohort, and this was before Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden had exposed the extent of NSA/CIA intelligence-gathering/American excesses or there was any kind of public debate around the fact that we were all surveilled all the time. And the fact that a brown guy named Barack Hussein Obama was elected in this climate seems, and still seems tbh, kind of amazing. And Obama was certainly not a Perfect President ™. He had to scale back a lot of planned initiatives, he is notorious for expanding the drone strike/extrajudicial assassination program, he still subscribed to the overall principles of neoliberalism and American exceptionalism, etc etc. There is valid criticism to be made as to how the hopey-changey optimistic rhetoric stacked up against the hard realities of political office. And yet…. at this point, given what we’re seeing from the White House on a daily basis, the depth of the parallel universe/double standards is absurd.

Because here’s the thing. Obama, his entire family, and his entire administration had to be personally/ethically flawless the whole time (and they managed that – not one scandal or arrest in eight years, against the legions of Trumpistas now being convicted) because of the absolute frothing depths of Republican hatred, racial conspiracy theories, and obstruction against him. (Remember Merrick Garland and how Mitch McConnell got away with that, and now we have Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court? Because I remember that). If Obama had pulled one-tenth of the shit, one-twentieth of the shit that the Trump administration does every day, he would be gone. It also meant that people who only remember Obama think he was typical for an American president, and he wasn’t. Since about… Jimmy Carter, and definitely since Ronald Reagan, the American people have gone for the Trump model a lot more than the Obama model. Whatever your opinion on his politics or character, Obama was a constitutional law professor, a community activist, a neighborhood organizer and brilliant Ivy League intellectual who used to randomly lie awake at night thinking about income inequality. Americans don’t value intellectualism in their politicians; they just don’t. They don’t like thinking that “the elites” are smarter than them. They like the folksy populist who seems fun to have a beer with, and Reagan/Bush Senior/Clinton/Bush Junior sold this persona as hard as they possibly could. As noted in said post, Bush Junior (or Shrub as the late, great Molly Ivins memorably dubbed him) was Trump Lite but from a long-established political family who could operate like an outwardly civilized human.

The point is: when you think Obama was relatively normal (which, again, he wasn’t, for any number of reasons) and not the outlier in a much larger pattern of catastrophic damage that has been accelerated since, again, the 1980s (oh Ronnie Raygun, how you lastingly fucked us!), you miss the overall context in which this, and which Trump, happened. Like most left-wingers, I don’t agree with Obama’s recent and baffling decision to insert himself into the 2020 race and warn the Democratic candidates against being too progressive or whatever he was on about. I think he was giving into the same fear that appears to be motivating the remaining chunk of Joe Biden’s support: that middle/working-class white America won’t go for anything too wild or that might sniff of Socialism, and that Uncle Joe, recalled fondly as said folksy populist and the internet’s favorite meme grandfather from his time as VP, could pick up the votes that went to Trump last time. And that by nature, no one else can.

The underlying belief is that these white voters just can’t support anything too “un-American,” and that by pushing too hard left, Democratic candidates risk handing Trump a second term. Again: I don’t agree and I think he was mistaken in saying it. But I also can’t say that Obama of all people doesn’t know exactly the strength of the political machine operating against the Democratic Party and the progressive agenda as a whole, because he ran headfirst into it for eight years. The fact that he managed to pass any of his legislative agenda, usually before the Tea Party became a thing in 2010, is because Democrats controlled the House and Senate for the first two years of his first term. He was not perfect, but it was clear that he really did care (just look up the pictures of him with kids). He installed smart, efficient, and scandal-free people to do jobs they were qualified for. He gave us Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to join RBG on the Supreme Court. All of this seems… like a dream.

That said: here we are in a place where Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are the front-runners for the Democratic nomination (and apparently Pete Buttigieg is getting some airplay as a dark horse candidate, which… whatever). The appeal of Biden is discussed above, and he sure as hell is not my favored candidate (frankly, I wish he’d just quit). But Sanders and Warren are 85% - 95% similar in their policy platforms. The fact that Michael “50 Billion Dollar Fortune” Bloomberg started rattling his chains about running for president is because either a Sanders or Warren presidency terrifies the outrageously exploitative billionaire capitalist oligarchy that runs this country and has been allowed to proceed essentially however the fuck they like since… you guessed it, the 1980s, the era of voodoo economics, deregulation, and the free market above all. Warren just happens to be ten years younger than Sanders and female, and Sanders’ age is not insignificant. He’s 80 years old and just had a heart attack, and there’s still a year to go to the election. It’s also more than a little eye-rolling to describe him as the only progressive candidate in the race, when he’s an old white man (however much we like and approve of his policy positions). And here’s the thing, which I think is a big part of the reason why this polarized ideological purity internet leftist culture mistrusts Warren:

She may have changed her mind on things in the past.

Scary, right? I sound like I’m being facetious, but I’m not. An argument I had to read with my own two eyes on this godforsaken hellsite was that since Warren became a Democrat around the time Clinton signed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, she sekritly hated gay people and might still be a corporate sellout, so on and etcetera. (And don’t even get me STARTED on the fact that DADT, coming a few years after the height of the AIDS crisis which was considered God’s Judgment of the Icky Gays, was the best Clinton could realistically hope to achieve, but this smacks of White Gay Syndrome anyway and that is a whole other kettle of fish.) Bernie has always demonstrably been a democratic socialist, and: good for him. I’m serious. But because there’s the chance that Warren might not have thought exactly as she does now at any point in her life, the hysterical and paranoid left-wing elements don’t trust that she might not still secretly do so. (Zomgz!) It’s the same element that’s feeding cancel culture and “wokeness.” Nobody can be allowed to have shifted or grown in their opinions or, like a functional, thoughtful, non-insane adult, changed their beliefs when presented with compelling evidence to the contrary. To the ideological hordes, any hint of uncertainty or past failure to completely toe the line is tantamount to heresy. Any evidence of any other belief except The Correct One means that this person is functionally as bad as Trump. And frankly, it’s only the Sanders supporters who, just as in 2016, are threatening to withhold their vote in the general election if their preferred candidate doesn’t win the primary, and indeed seem weirdly proud about it.

OK, boomer Bernie or Buster.

Here’s the thing, the thing, the thing: there is never going to be an American president free of the deeply toxic elements of American ideology. There just won’t be. This country has been built how it has for 250 years, and it’s not gonna change. You are never going to have, at least not in the current system, some dream candidate who gets up there and parrots the left-wing talking points and attacks American imperialism, exceptionalism, ravaging global capitalism, military and oil addiction, etc. They want to be elected as leader of a country that has deeply internalized and taken these things to heart for its entire existence, and most of them believe it to some degree themselves. So this groupthink white liberal mentality where the only acceptable candidate is this Perfect Non-Problematic robot who has only ever had one belief their entire lives and has never ever wavered in their devotion to doctrine has really gotten bad. The Democratic Party would be considered… maybe center/mild left in most other developed countries. It’s not even really left-wing by general standards, and Sanders and Warren are the only two candidates for the nomination who are even willing to go there and explicitly put out policy proposals that challenge the systematic structure of power, oppression, and exploitation of the late-stage capitalist 21st century. Warren has the billionaires fussed, and instead of backing down, she’s doubling down. That’s part of why they’re so scared of her. (And also misogyny, because the world is depressing like that.) She is going head-on after picking a fight with some of the worst people on the planet, who are actively killing the rest of us, and I don’t know about you, but I like that.

Of course: none of this will mean squat if she (or the eventual Democratic winner, who I will vote for regardless of who it is, but as you can probably tell, she’s my ride or die) don’t a) win the White House and then do as they promised on the campaign trail, and b) don’t have a Democratic House and Senate willing to have a backbone and pass the laws. Even Nancy Pelosi, much as she’s otherwise a badass, held off on opening a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump for months out of fear it would benefit him, until the Ukraine thing fell into everyone’s laps. The Democrats are really horrible at sticking together and voting the party line the way Republicans do consistently, because Democrats are big-tent people who like to think of themselves as accepting and tolerant of other views and unwilling to force their members’ hands. The Republicans have no such qualms (and indeed, judging by their enabling of Trump, have no qualms at all). 

The modern American Republican party has become a vehicle for no-holds-barred power for rich white men at the expense of absolutely everything and everyone else, and if your rationale is that you can’t vote for the person opposing Donald Goddamn Trump is that you’re just not vibing with them on the language of that one policy proposal… well, I’m glad that you, White Middle Class Liberal, feel relatively safe that the consequences of that decision won’t affect you personally. Even if we’re due to be out of the Paris Climate Accords one day after the 2020 election, and the issue of climate change now has the most visibility it’s ever had after years of big-business, Republican-led efforts to deny and discredit the science, hey, Secret Corporate Shill, am I right? Can’t trust ‘er. Let’s go have a craft beer.

As has been said before: vote as far left as you want in the primary. Vote your ideology, vote whatever candidate you want, because the only way to make actual, real-world change is to do that. The huge, embedded, all-consuming and horrible system in which we operate is not just going to suddenly be run by fairy dust and happy thoughts overnight. Select candidates that reflect your values exactly, be as picky and ideologically militant as you want. That’s the time to do that! Then when it comes to the general election:

America is a two-party system. It sucks, but that’s the case. Third-party votes, or refraining from voting because “it doesn’t matter” are functionally useless at best and actively harmful at worst.

Either the Democratic candidate or Donald Trump will win the 2020 election.

There is absolutely no length that the Republican/GOP machine, and its malevolent allies elsewhere, will not go to in order to secure a Trump victory. None.

Any talk whatsoever about “progressive values” or any kind of liberal activism, coupled with a course of action that increases the possibility of a Trump victory, is hypocritical at best and actively malicious at worst.

This is why I found the Democratic response to Obama’s “don’t go too wild” comments interesting. Bernie doubled down on the fact that his plans have widespread public support, and he’s right. (Frankly, the fact that Sanders and Warren are polling at the top, and the fact that they’re politicians and would not be crafting these campaign messages if they didn’t know that they were being positively received, says plenty on its own). Warren cleverly highlighted and praised Obama’s accomplishments in office (i.e. the Affordable Care Act) and didn’t say squat about whether she agreed or disagreed with him, then went right back to campaigning about why billionaires suck. And some guy named Julian Castro basically blew Obama off and claimed that “any Democrat” could beat Trump in 2020, just by nature of existing and being non-insane.

This is very dangerous! Do not be Julian Castro!

As I said in my tags on the Bush post: everyone assumed that sensible people would vote for Kerry in 2004. Guess what happened? Yeah, he got Swift Boated. The race between Obama and McCain in 2008, even after those said nightmare years of Bush, was very close until the global crash broke it open in Obama’s favor, and Sarah Palin was an actual disqualifier for a politician being brazenly incompetent and unprepared. (Then again, she was a woman from a remote backwater state, not a billionaire businessman.) In 2012, we thought Corporate MormonBot Mitt Fuggin’ Romney was somehow the worst and most dangerous candidate the Republicans could offer. In 2016, up until Election Day itself, everyone assumed that HRC was a badly flawed candidate but would win anyway. And… we saw how that worked out. Complacency is literally deadly.

I was born when Reagan was still president. I’m just old enough to remember the efforts to impeach Clinton over forcing an intern to give him a BJ in the Oval Office (This led by the same Republicans making Donald Trump into a darling of the evangelical Christian right wing.) I’m definitely old enough to remember 9/11 and how America lost its mind after that, and I remember the Bush years. And, obviously, the contrast with Obama, the swing back toward Trump, and everything that has happened since. We can’t afford to do this again. We’re hanging by a thread as it is, and not just America, but the entire planet.

So yes. By all means, vote for Sanders in the primary. Then when November 3, 2020 rolls around, if you care about literally any of this at all, hold your nose if necessary and vote straight-ticket Democrat, from the president, to the House and Senate, to the state and local offices. I cannot put it more strongly than that.

[catrasredemption-moved]

Zuko doesn't get worse before he gets better like with Catra, and maybe that's what throws people off with how Catra's story goes. Zuko's moment of change (freeing Appa) is one of a truly noble act that conks him out and causes him to slowly grow from there, with a setback or two. Catra's is her reaching an absolute nadir and having that collapse her to her base elements over the course of a season until her true feelings about Adora are the only things left.

Not to be snarky or anything, but Zuko is already at his worst before the show even starts. He spends all of season one trying to kidnap Aang, holds Katara hostage briefly, burns down villages, and is just a generally terrible person. The difference is that we don’t see his mental spiral as clearly as we do Catra’s.

I also think we see Zuko’s redemption through nostalgia filters. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good! And it set the example going forward of how to do and improve upon good redemption arcs. He doesn’t just have a setback or two, he has a couple huge fuck ups - i.e. turning on Iroh, Katara, and Aang in the cave and hiring an assassin to kill Aang. (and then forgetting to call him off - really, Zuko? Really?) 

And, probably most significant of all, he has the luxury of time. He and Iroh hide behind their tea shop while he figures his shit out. Catra hits bottom when Double Trouble calls her out, and is almost immediately abducted by Horde Prime and thrown into another situation where she needs to make the the big bad like her to stay alive - because she knows, unlike Glimmer, that Horde Prime doesn’t need her. At best, she’s bait for Adora. And she doesn’t even get to keep any of her bodily autonomy or agency through that - Prime mindwipes her and puts a chip in her neck and uses her as a puppet to taunt Adora when she gets there. And when she starts fighting back, he kills her (or tries to. I firmly believe she died, but there’s room for debate). From beginning to end she’s been informed over and over that her life is forfeit, to the point where she truly believes it and when she makes the choice to get Glimmer off the ship, she follows through without hesitation. No trying to manipulate Glimmer into wanting to rescue her. No messing with Adora when they talk. She finally accepts what she’s been told for years - she’s worthless, her life is forfeit, she’s beyond any redemption or forgiveness. It’s a very extreme difference from Zuko, who not only learns to accept himself and acknowledge his worth, but sets out to prove it by helping the gaang defeat Ozai.

And that difference, I think, is why I like Catra’s arc more. Don’t get me wrong! It’s admirable that Zuko found a way to break free from his cycle of abuse on his own and realized his life was worth more than what his father ever let him believe. Catra, on the other hand, is basically dragged kicking and screaming back to life by Adora and is left in this weird position of “okay well I didn’t plan on living this long, now what.” And I am not at all glorifying Catra more or less trying to kill herself. It’s just, to me, far easier to relate to and understand, which is why she sticks in my mind more than Zuko does, if that makes sense. And when she realizes she actually has to live and deal with things, she does the one thing that feels right - she reaches out to Adora.

I saw a really good comment somewhere about how Catra’s season five story isn’t a redemption arc - it’s the start of one. Zuko’s story, as far as we see in the show, ends with him getting everything he wanted - not just being the Fire Lord, but finally having a family (the gaang) that understands him and loves him for who he is. He still has shit to deal with, but even before LoK, it was easy to assume he went on and lived a full, happy life with his friend and Mai and was probably a great Fire Lord (there are all kinds of metas about how he’s the polar opposite of Ozai and they’re all excellent).

Catra’s story, meanwhile, ends with her standing at the beginning of a lot of work, and she starts with what’s probably the hardest but most important one - Scorpia. And yes, she did get to tell Adora she loves and that world-saving kiss (gay saves the world), but there’s still a lot of work to do (and yes, I know people are all about “aw they’re dating they’re girlfriends now” and I get wanting them to just have a happy ending, but that’s not really how I see things going. You can acknowledge you love someone without immediately jumping into a relationship. I have so many post-series Catradora headcanons...)

Sorry, this got long and I’m not sure I really addressed your point tbh ^_^; I just have a lot of feelings about this. At the end of the day, I feel like Zuko was meant to be the character who proves you can grow up being abused and still be a good person. Catra, on the other hand, is the character who’s abused and becomes bitter and angry because of it, and has to find her way out of that hole. She isn’t quite there yet by the end of the show, but she’s working on it.

(and this is why I’d love a movie or another season. Come on Noelle, I know you’ve got it in you)

[janiedean]

You've been very critical of Cersei, especially in response to Tumblr often defending her in more ways than she probably should. In the same vein, do you think Daenerys is as bad or ambitious as Cersei? Are they meant to be parallels or foils?

I... don’t know if it’s like that for various reasons starting with the fact that cersei is a villain and dany is not and I think that what they have as parallels isn’t really where grrm means to go at, but I’ll try to give the most possible objective answer.

premise: dany is a character I really don’t care much either way about and I don’t remember 60% of her chapters (like, 90% of adwd and for the rest I only remember decently the got stuff and half of asos plus the vision at the end of acok) and I haven’t reread them in ages unless I needed to because a) she’s really not on my radar, b) that’s not the most engaging storyline to me so take my opinions for what they are.

that said:

I don’t think they’re nowhere near the same level because dany actually cares about other people which cersei does not;

also, there’s the angle where imvho dany wants the throne more because of her name/legacy/because viserys wanted it and she grew up with that toxic environment and she’s not actually moving forward bc basically she’s taken on herself what viserys wanted, but if you look at it... tbh I think dany just wants to get back to the house with the red door cuddling her lizards which is also why i think she’s not eventually getting the throne even if she won’t die at the end but that’s beyond the point, while everything cersei does is to get power and fuck everyone else in the way;

which is the other fundamental difference ie cersei doesn’t gaf about anyone else that’s not herself and doesn’t see people’s needs as something she needs to care about, while dany actually does care about other people - admittedly she gets caught up in selfrighteousness about that a lot for that but like... it’s not as if she freed the slaves for that, she really does believe in her cause/in helping others;

now, the thing they have in common imvho that I can see as a pseudo-parallel is that neither of them is actually good at ruling - or better, cersei is plain bad because she thinks that she’s her father and she’s not and she doesn’t listen to other people while dany has good intentions but doesn’t have one single adviser who’s actually trained for politics and is bad at seeing the great picture never mind diplomacy never mind that she hasn’t grasped the concept that you can’t just dismantle an entire established system with fire and blood even if it’s wrong (ie: everything that happens post-conquer of mereen is basically the realistic consequences of swooping in with dragons without looking at the entire situation around the place you’re supposed to conquer), which means that cersei’s stint at ruling and dany’s are both not good (and if adwd/affc had been one single book probably it would have been a more blatant parallel than it is with the books separated) so like... they could have been foils in that sense but if they had been in the same book it would have been more obvious but I mean... at worst it would have shown that dany isn’t a good ruler but means well while cersei isn’t a good ruler and.. well, means well for herself;

that said dany’s ambition, as stated before, is her brother’s ambition more than hers and it’s more about her birthright than what she actually wants, so i don’t think you can compare it with cersei’s because cersei again wants power for herself and like... she does want that;

I don’t think dany and cersei are even remotely on the same level morally because as stated dany cares about other people and cersei doesn’t;

also, you can dislike dany or not care, but... she’s written to be sympathetic, while cersei is not, in the sense that while you can find sympathetic someone the narrative doesn’t present as such and viceversa (for example with dany I’m not particularly interested so like... I care but I don’t relate to her nor feel anything that much specific except that I don’t dislike her but that’s it even if she’s written to be relatable/sympathetic while with cersei people see traits they find relatable/sympathetic so they empathize with her even if the narrative is very clear about how cersei is a negative character, which ofc is their prerogative bc everyone feels about characters in their own way), objectively dany is not coded negatively even if she has faults while cersei is coded negatively because she’s a villain and there’s nothing in her chapters that suggests that she’s going to change or that she wants to or that she would care for that, so ‘as bad as cersei’ is.... not correct because they’re nowhere near the same level when it comes to their personalities and they don’t act for the same reasons;

also: re cersei my problem is that people excuse everything she does on account of things that each single woman in these books has to deal with but somehow cersei is untouchable even when she’s done far worse than most other characters and without even taking dany into account (bc I think discourse on dany is extremely polarized in fandom and I don’t agree with either the FLAWLESS HERO side nor the OMG SHE’S THE VILLAIN side - I think she’s trying to do good but being a queen is not her life call and she’s there to deconstruct very specific tropes while being written sympathetically, so I’m like... not touching that, but people do criticize dany even if 80% of the time it’s not for reasons that are in the text but nvm), but like... if you objectively compare what catelyn has done textually and what cersei has done textually and see what fandom thinks of either in general it’s obvious that there is a strong double standard and I’m personally extremely tired of being classified as some kinda internalized misogynist because I don’t like cersei when people shit on catelyn for actual misogynistic reasons (because sorry but ‘she’s such a bitch she should have gone back home to her smaller children why did she even think she could help out robb’ when cat’s smarter than 90% of the other povs combined is a goddamned misogynist argument and guess what half of this fandom happily partakes in it to say one, and it’s not even the start of it). like, my issue with cersei is that people don’t discuss her critically nor accept that she’s a bad guy objectively - subjectively they can think whatever they want, but if you’re selling me your analysis as meta/STUFF THAT’S IN THE TEXT then it should be in the text and passing cersei as some feminist hero that is crushing the patriarchy is not what the text says;

I don’t have 99% of the same issues with dany bc as stated I don’t go there, idc about her and I disagree anyway with 98% of the takes I see concerning dany anyway but at least no one says that if you dislike dany you automatically don’t give a damn about women but that’s another problem;

but tldr the way dany is discussed in fandom is not the same cersei is discussed in fandom and I disagree with both discourses bc I think dany’s is too polarized in two opposite ways that don’t cover it imvho and cersei is polarized in one direction and that is my issue with cersei discourse basically;

I don’t think these two are comparable on a moral scale bc as stated dany has morals and cersei... doesn’t, on a narratively sympathy scale because grrm wants you to sympathize with dany at least to a level while not hiding that she has faults same as everyone in these books while cersei is written as a straight-up negative character that has possibly relatable reasons for being like that and which people can see themselves in, but she’s not meant to be someone the story sympathizes with - you’re meant to feel sorry for her at some point (I guess because I’m not the right person to ask that question) and you can absolutely find her relatable, but we’re not talking about people with the same set of morals, values and life targets anyway so tldr the answer is that at most they’re foils in the way grrm explores how they both fail at their first try at ruling (and for cersei most likely the last) but dany’s meant to be sympathetic, cersei isn’t;

I think they’re parallels in that sense but tbf I think that cersei has quiiite more foiling going on with cat in the sense of characters you contrast with each other who are starting from similar premises, and with dany I think it all begins and dies with their being queens but tbf I also don’t think it’s dany’s endgame and cersei is dying because she’s power-hungry so if dany lives renouncing it and cersei dies embracing it it’s definitely a foil for that, but like... they also aren’t directly connected by the narrative and I absolutely don’t think dany is younger and more beautiful which would actually connect them, idt they’re actually ever meeting, so... there is a parallel/foil but just on that one aspect. for the rest they’re wildly different imvho.

... I hope it made sense. XD

[ganymedesclock]

kaorusan241 replied to your post: I’ve expressed my frustration before with fanon...

Tbh if you’re gonna make a post like this you ought to mention that they share plenty of negative traits too…. otherwise you’re just a hypocrite for stanning Shiro/ignoring his canon faults whilst accusing Lance stans of doing the same

Hi, friend! That post was pretty tongue-in-cheek, admittedly, it was mostly me expressing frustration.

The intent of the post was not that either Shiro or Lance are perfect or flawless people, but, rather, that Lance is mistakenly given Shiro’s traits, and I wanted to rally against that not only because Shiro deserves recognition for who and what he is, but also because that’s not fair to Lance at all! He’s not Shiro, and he shouldn’t have to be like Shiro to be seen as a worthwhile person.

Because Lance is a very empathetic and open person. If anything, he and Shiro are polar opposites in how they address their feelings. Lance is very inclined to networking and opening up to people, and as seen in s3e6 with Keith, will actively seek people out to talk about his concerns and stresses.

This is a fantastic quality of Lance’s, one of, in my opinion, his greatest character strengths and it’s something Shiro is awful at. Lance actually does the good thing and addresses his feelings. This makes sense because multiple official sources tell us the Blue Lion is the nurturing emotional head of Voltron- the “heart” of the team. And that’s an area where Lance excels.

Conversely this is an area Shiro struggles with profoundly. This poor guy has an obvious undiagnosed anxiety disorder (PTSD) and seems to have been a slightly high-strung overachiever most of his life. Shiro stocks strengths Lance doesn’t- he has an incredible resolve, pain tolerance, and determination. That’s not to say Lance is weak-willed or cowardly, but, consider incidents like in s1e5 where Lance fights awake for a brief period of time to attack Sendak and then rapidly loses consciousness again.

Shiro has the most determination and greatest force of personality out of the team, in general. He has a powerful sense of personal ethics and will live or die, stare into the abyss for his ideals.

Lance, while also a hero, and able to do some amazing things (he was able to get under Shiro’s skin in s2e8 challenging him, he’s no wimp in the willpower department ‘cause none of these kids are) doesn’t have all of Shiro’s strengths and that’s fine. He doesn’t need to. He has all of Lance’s strengths, instead.

Furthermore, you have to consider where Lance was in s1e1 and what that says about Lance. Lance is not a genius or a prodigy. However, he was able to, through basically just diligence and hard work- another major virtue of his- reach Keith’s position. He was able to occupy the slot in the fighter class saved for Keith, their most promising cadet. Iverson phrases it incredibly harshly, but he clearly thinks Lance has potential, and the only problem is he doesn’t think Lance is taking this seriously.

But Lance isn’t happy in s1e1. Because that slot wasn’t meant for him. It was someone else’s role. And there’s something to this once s3e2 comes around and Lance steps up as Red Paladin.

Unlike Allura or Keith, Lance struggles the least, observably, with the Red Lion. His single argument is the controls are tricky, and by s3e3 he’s overwhelmingly worked that out.

Of the paladins, Lance is the most adaptable to an unpredictable or changing situation. This is also reflected in s4e4, when all the paladins are called upon to act contrary to who they really are- notice that Lance is the one who thrives in that environment. Because Lance is a chameleon of a person. He’s able to be what the situation needs of him with a great deal of flexibility.

(Consider that his counterpart on Team Sincline is an almost literal chameleon.)

But ultimately those roles are disappointing and unfulfilling. They don’t work as a permanent arrangement because he knows they’re not for him, and he knows what feels right.

Full disclosure here, I adore Lance. The reason why I get so frustrated at popular fanon Lance is he’s one of my favorite characters and I feel like people really do not give him credit where credit’s due! Especially because my point that he’s given Shiro’s characteristics is that time and time again, I’ve seen fanwork of Lance being utterly destroyed in his own area of expertise.

Again, Lance is the feelings guy out of the team! Shiro, Keith, and Allura are frankly all prone to bottling issues, failing to address them, holding things past the breaking point and snapping at the worst possible time and place. Lance? Lance doesn’t do that. Lance can be basically precision suckerpunched right where it hurts with his own issues- look at s3e1 and the revelation that not only did Shiro actively nominate Keith as leader in his absence but the Black Lion also thinks so right when Lance was still nursing the hurt of being rejected by Black.

Look at how perfectly Lance takes it upon himself to put everything he’s feeling, that he knows, that he acknowledges, that he’s already been venting and communicating- aside, and talk about it in a mature and empathetic manner because he can tell that Keith is suffering in this situation.

This is Lance who says “This isn’t a participation game, this is war,” or who spent s4e6 doing everything he could to make Allura believe she could do what the entire team was counting on. Lance, who with certainty knows that the Blue Lion is the heart of the team and uses that to prop up Allura, but never took that knowledge to aggrandize himself.

Lance is an amazing person. He’s a wonderful, empathetic guy full of love, and he’s got fantastic instincts about people’s emotions. When he gets in trouble, he’s a very proactive force getting out of them and often his saving grace in situations is how good he is at listening to people even if he doesn’t necessarily like them or wants to prove himself against them. He’s so much stronger than his own insecurities.

But Lance isn’t a Black Paladin. He could do it, just like he can work with Red, but it wouldn’t be ideal for him. He’d sure do a lot better than Shiro would do with Blue, because... uh. Consider what happened with Allura, and consider what happened in Beta Traz when Shiro was in a stressful situation and felt like it was out of his control.

I also have great affection for Shiro. But. Dear god, he’s that friend that you knew that was taking all advanced classes and holding down straight A’s and also on a competitive sport team and you see them occasionally at mealtimes and they have never, ever had enough sleep.

Like I said it before, Shiro has the strongest personal ethics and greatest determination out of the paladins and that’s a high damn bar but he pays for that by being stressed the hell out. And he’s spectacularly bad at self-care, because he’s got so much fortitude that he assumes he can make it, and most of the time he’s right, but it has a very heavy cost to him.

Conversely, Lance, as I started this out by saying- Lance is fantastic at self-care. This is actively shown in his grooming habits. In s1e2 when everybody runs to the bridge, Shiro is the guy who was awake way too early and dressed and exercising probably because his sleep routine is fucked up and wasn’t relaxing at all. Lance wanders in late, but rested, pampered, and clearly having taken time and resources to make sure he’s at his best.

Yes, one of them is the one you want on your side during a catastrophe, but, that’s really not anywhere approaching a long-term healthy lifestyle. Even as herculean as Shiro is, he’s gonna burn himself out a long time before Lance does, because Lance understands that while the last-gasp ‘wake up from a coma to shoot the guy hassling your friends and damn your internal injuries’ stunts have a place and a value, if that happens more than once you should look at how many times something blows up on you.

And that’s really important to me, because emotions and nurturing are seen as stereotypically feminine traits- and because of that, a lot of boys and men are denied that. What are you, some kind of wuss who needs emotional care? (Spoiler: you are. Everyone is.) This amazing, important, heroic quality is seen as worthless- and that happens big time with characterizing Lance! I’ve heard people say he did absolutely nothing when it was his intervention and his virtues in s4e6 that let Allura awaken her powers that went on and saved everybody. Lancey Lance did that!

TL;DR Lance and Shiro are both amazing people, and very different people, and as someone who loves both of them, I want the qualities they have to be respected, rather than misattributed to other people or ignored.

[dachi-chan25]

IT (1986)

What is it about? The Losers Club, a group of 7 kids that in different ways are outsiders among the other children in the little town of Derry must come back 27 years after defeating their worst fears embodied in a evil alien entity that has preyed on this small Maine town and its recidents since the dawn of time. Thoughts: - I have read this book a gazillion times and it’s my favorite Stephen King book of all time (though that may change once I finish this challenge, but only time will tell) everytime I read through its pages is like reuniting with an old dear friend, because most of the characters (read: the Losers Club) are just that for me, I read this book for the first time when I was 15 after growing up with the 90’s miniseries, and I loved it, that feeling hasn’t changed with the years and well I want to elaborate a bit on what I love about this book. - Derry’s history: One of the reasons this book is so damn big is that it delves on the history of this little town called Derry, of course this is to help the reader understand just for how long and how big is IT’s influence on the town, but I just found it so fascinating, I’ve always loved history, and this book just reaaaally fullfiled my needs in that aspect, the town’s history is full of gruesome events but it’s very intresting and through all the same. -Loser’s Club: I love this kids, we are introduced to them little by little through different POV’s and god, I just really like the diversity and complexity in them: a kid with a stutter, an asthmatic that is really a kid heavily manipulated by his overprotective mother, an overweight, a jewish with OCD, a girl victim of physical/emotional parental abuse, the class clown that most likely has ADHD, the only black boy in town… And what I love the most is that they are NOT defined by that, sure,that is how the world sees them but they are so much more than that and together they find their true identities: Stuttering Bill be comes the Leader, Asthmatic Eddie becomes the Compass, Fat Ben becomes the Constructor, Jewish Stan becomes the Logic, Poor Beverly becomes the Shooter, Trashmouth Richie becomes the Weapon (his voces physically hurt IT), Black Mike becomes the Historian. As well as the belonging and friendship they had never had before, their relationship is strong and beautiful, as a reader you will most often find some of yourself in them and even if you don’t you love them all the same for their flaws and virtues. -IT: I read somewhere that a story is only as great as its villian and in IT’s case that I think is only fitting, thus my love for is evil entity, because IT is really a big represantation of violence not necessarily(The Bradley Gang Shooting was afterall motivated by the Derry townsfolk rightgeousness) but mostly evil, IT transforms into awfull gruesome monsters yet his most terrifying act is the influence it helds on the people inhabiting Derry, on taking the violent nature of some people (Derry’s White Decency League, Eddie Corcoran stepfather’s, Alvin Marsh, Butch and Henry Bowers…) and exploit it for its own gain, IT is scary for it’s power, for the fact that one can really comprehend it’s magitude, and when we finally get to get inside it’s head we find something more akin to a beast, hungry and vengeful, he had turned lazy because he already had in Derry a comfortable feeding place and now wants to kill the Loser’s Club because for the first time in its long existance IT feels fear! and how wonderful is that? a group of scared isolated kids find strenght in each other to rid their Town and follow kids of this entity, even if they are afraid themselves, and they succeed in frightening a creature that literally feeds of fear. -The portrayal of the timelines and gruesome subjects: The 1950 are not usted only for aesthetics or praised as the “good old times” King shows a very gritty reality showcasing the racism (very prominent in Mike’s storyline), sexism, homophobia, domestic violence, anti-semitism,and it goes further yet showing that 27 years later these things haven’t changed and IT uses them for it’s benefit. The book doesn’t shy away from any of these things and often it is very hard to read through them but as well I think is important to read them to gain concience,they are not presented as good or romantiziced in any from or way, nor should they ever be (dude the anti-semitism in Patricia Uris’s POV is something that will open your eyes in many ways if you are not jewish, and the Black Spot story will horrify you but also help you understand it was not only the South of USA and the KKK that spread hate and horror for PoC people) this things are meant to horrify you thus I feel it would be a disservice not to read them (though I can understand if anyone simply can’t). -The bittersweet ending: Really heart breaking that after reuniting with the people they could really be themselves with the Loser’s Club are meant to not remember each other ( SPOILERS AHEAD DO NOT READ IF YOU DON’T WANNA SPOIL PART OF THE ENDING OF THE BOOK: as a side note and I do not mean this as hate to the ship or anything but a real doubt I have can anyone explain to me why is everyone saying/asuming Ben and Beverly did end up together?, I mean going by the 90’s miniseries sure, but in the book Mike only says she is going to Nebraska with Ben and then back to Chicago with Kay and that he thinks they are/will be having sex, but also later we find that even if they are in the same Town Mike and Bill have begun to forget each other and it’s heavily implied the same will happen with them all? and that is a very Stephen King thing to do I mean most of the book couples I’ve read from him have similar bittersweet endings so… Pls someone explain) I just always about cry about the End and you know the THING that happens with two of the losers. But also I am a ho for this kind of bittersweet stuff so of course I love it. -Richie and Beverly’s friendship: Listen I LIVE for them, of course I just about adore every Loser’s friendship (Bill/Eddie, Richie/Stan, Richie/Eddie, Richie/Bill, Mike/Ben, Stan/Bev duuuude everyone is amazing) but this two just about make me crazy about them, tbh I kinda lowkey ship them in a platonic kinda way, and I was endlessly frustrated by the lack of scenes between them in the 90’s miniseries after I read the book cuz booooy, the yo-yo scene is so goddamned amazing, Richie being the first POV in which Bev is mentioned and he reminds her through the lyric of a song, his Humphrey Bogart voice he does when speaking with her, how much he respects her, also Miss Sca'lett!!!, not to mention that sweet ass scene they have in the book “22/11/63” where Bev is teaching Richie how to swing for a school talent show, ahhhh Imma stop right there cuz I am fangirling waaaay to much and probably y'all think I am wierd for liking such an unpopular thing. -There is just one thing I always felt was completely unecessary to add and was gross to read (you already know what I am talking about and if not I’m not gonna spoil you/gross you out), I have read of course why SK did it but I still think he should have looked for another way to make the Losers enter adulthood : / Movie/TV Adaptations: There are 2: The ABC’s 1990 miniseries “IT” and the 2017 movie by Andy Muschietti “IT (chapter 1)” of course it has been already confirmed there is going to be another movie for the Second part but I will not to go too much into it now. 1990: The opinions on this one are very polarized, some love it with a passion, some hate it… I actually love it, and by that I do not mean is a perfect adaptation, but it was such an integral part of my childhood and family life that it would be impossible for me to hate it, and I feel most people are terribly unfair with it, because it is not a Bad adaptation like let’s say Kubrick’s Shining (yaa I’m going there) it had a lot of limitations in budget and technology and still managed to capture some of the best parts of the book (the Loser’s friendship mainly, it was beautiful) of course it wasn’t gorey or violent but in it’s time it was scary as hell, which beings me to Tim Curry’s performance as Pennywise that became so iconic people automatically recognize the clown’s design, for fuck’s sake Pennywise became one of the most iconic monsters of that time and terrorized an entire generation of kids and adults alike, of course it has it’s faults (the adult’s part wasn’t great, tho the scene with Bev in Mrs. Kersh house was great, and the ending was bound to be confusing af to people that didn’t read the book) but overall it was a good atempt and it already has a place in pop culture and the hearts of many horror fans. 2017: Oh boy I was really looking forward to this one since they anounced it was going to be a thing (ahhh remember the time Will Poulter and Cary Fukunaga were our only hope?) and just had the chance to see it today, because a lot of awful things happened in my country (I am mexican btw) and yeah, so I left the theater with a very pleasant sensation IT 2017 is a great movie and I LOVED it, the acting was GREAT everyone did amazing, Georgie’s death scene was simply amazing and so sad, the projector scene was wow, lots of winks to book readers like the turtle and Eddie Corcoran’s missing pamphlet, Bev’s bathroom scene, the rock fight!!!,Eddie changing Loser to Lover is iconic, some of Richie’s one-liners were amazing, Pennywise dance pfffftt, Ben was adorable with his crush and love of New Kids on the Block, the Losers,“they’re Gazebos they’re bullshit!” iconic, mainly I feel it captured the general feeling of the book however that does not mean I didn’t had some issues with it as well, first thing that bothered me a LOT is the treatment to Mike Hanlon, excuse the fuck out of me but no, they took his thing (history of Derry) and gave it to Ben (also Ben not constructing things like ??? Could have been a perfect chance to have him build lego stuff but k) where is my beautiful spring loving child?? I just couldn’t find any single trait on his character apart from the wierd sheep thing and his parents, which takes me to another issue why is every adult on Derry so shitty? Like yeah there was a lot of shady awful stuff in the book but there were also ok people namely Mrs. Starret (the librarian, that is so unnecesarily creppy? Wierd? In the movie), Richie’s parents (his dad is hillarious), Mike’s parents they are the best tbh, Mr Keene (ok this one is a sarcastic asshole but he did try to help Eddie instead of letting him keep on believing he was sick to keep selling stuff, and also was never a wierd pervert), Mr. Nell (dude I would have killed to hear Richie doing the Irish Cop voice), the Tracker Brothers (boy Eddie looking longingly at the baseball diamond would have been 10/10, my boy loved sports)… thing is the Losers did love Derry and some parts of their childhood in it and that’s were the nostalgia hits on part two, Stan well I loved they delved more onto his jewishness (a thing not much touched in the book because Stan’s family is not very strictly religious) but was very side lined as well ( in my opinion that part about Richie being scared shitless and Bill punches him would have fit Stan better, also almost all of the Losers got closure (Bev rebelled against her father, Ben kissed Beverly and she got to find out he was the one who wrote the haiku, Bill got to talk with Georgie kind of?, Mike stepped up against Henry, Eddie confronted his mother,Richie let go of his fear to kill the fucking clown…) yet Stan doesn’t I just think it would have been nice to have him iniciate the pact as he did on the book and also his bird book????, the slut shaming and over sexualization of Beverly (I won’t even go into how much it broke my heart to see/hear Richie saying all that stuff about her like no, he respected her a lot thx) just why change the white trash problem to a slut shaming thing???(also while his dad did not beat her in this movie he was so much more GROSS than in the 90’s) I am however not bothered by the ‘Kiss of Life’ trope nor do I think she was reduced to a damsel in distress if anything she was the bravest of them all, also some things not really bothered me but made me wonder what will happen in Chapter 2 namely wft is gonna happen with Henry is he alive?? Same for Bev’s dad what happened there? Is he alive? Is he dead? Though of course we will get answers in chapter 2 I was just like wow how is this gonna pan out. Basically an amazing movie I was not disappointed at all and I would love to watch it again but as an adaptation I think I would still love to see a longish miniseries covering more of Derry’s history and the kid’s personalities/misadventures (of course I do not want THAT scene to be in any adaptation ever) but generally covering more book stuff. but hey all this is just my humble opinion and I admit I adore the book, though I am not closed off to changes just those things kinda made me go hmmmmmm…. Quotes: Stan: “Every- thing’s a lot tougher when it’s for real. That’s when you choke. When it’s for real.” “He wanted to tell them that those dead boys who had lurched and shambled their way down the spiral staircase had done something worse than frighten him: they had offended him.” Bill: “If fiction and politics ever really do become interchangeable, I’m going to kill myself, because I won’t know what else to do. You see, politics always change. Stories never do” “Silver flew and Stuttering Bill Denbrough flew with him; their gantry-like shadow fled behind them. They raced down Up-Mile Hill together; the playing cards roared. Bill’s feet found the pedals again and he began to pump, wanting to go even faster, wanting to reach some hypothetical speed — not of sound but of memory — and crash through the pain barrier.” Richie:“Now he had to go back to being himself, and that was hard — it got harder to do that every year. It was easier to be brave when you were someone else.” “He knew a great deal of the Bible already, and he knew the Bible believed in all sorts of weird stuff. According to the Bible, God Himself was at least one-third Ghost, and that was just the beginning. You could tell the Bible believed in demons, because Jesus threw a bunch of them out of this guy. Real chuckalicious ones, too. When Jesus asked the guy who had them what his name was, the demons answered and told Him to go join the Foreign Legion. Or something like that” (#make chuckalicious happen 2k17) Ben: “Maybe that’s why God made us kids first and built us close to the ground, because He knows you got to fall down a lot and bleed a lot before you learn that one simple lesson. You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for … and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.” “A child blind from birth doesn’t even know he’s blind until someone tells him. Even then he has only the most academic idea of what blindness is; only the formerly sighted have a real grip on the thing. Ben Hanscom had no sense of being lonely because he had never been anything but. If the condition had been new, or more localized, he might have understood, but loneliness both encompassed his life and overreached it. It simply was.” Eddie: “Sometimes home is where the heart is, Eddie thought randomly, I believe that. Old Bobby Frost said home’s the place where, when you go there they have to take you in. Unfortunately, it’s also the place where, once you’re in there, they don’t ever want to let you out.” “Maybe, he thought, there aren’t any such things as good friends or bad friends - maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you’re hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they’re always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for too, if that’s what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.” Mike: “Haunted, haunting, haunt.Often visited by ghosts or spirits, as in the pipes under the sink; to appear or recur often, as every twenty-five, twenty-six, or twenty-seven years; a feeding place for animals, as in the cases of George Denbrough, Adrian Mellon, Betty Ripsom, the Albrecht girl, the Johnson boy.A feeding place for animals. Yes, that’s the one that haunts me.” “But Mike enjoyed most of the places in Derry his father sent or took him to, and by the time Mike was ten Will had succeeded in conveying his own interest in the layers of Derry’s history to his son. Sometimes, as when he had been trailing his fingers over the slightly pebbled surface of the stand in which the Memorial Park birdbath was set, or when he had squatted down to look more closely at the trolley tracks which grooved Mont Street in the Old Cape, he would be struck by a profound sense of time … time as something real, as something that had unseen weight” Bev: “oh shapes of men, sometimes seen as day closed down, sometimes seen across Watertower Square in the noonlight of a clear windy autumn day, shapes of men, rules of men, desires of men: or Tom, so like her father when he took off his shirt and stood slightly slumped in front of the bathroom mirror to shave. Shapes of men.” ‘Is it because I’m a girl?’[…] she exploded.‘Well, fuck you!’ She whirled around to look at the others, and they flinched from her gaze,so hot it was nearly radioactive. 'Fuck all of you if you think the same thing!’ She turned back to Bill and began to talk fast, rapping him with words. 'This is something more than some diddlyshit kid’s game like tag or guns or hide-and-go-seek, and you know it, Bill. We’re supposed to do this. That’s part of it. And you’re not going to cut me out just because I’m a girl.“ Adding this one cuz I love how stupidly cute it is and cuz that Richie is such a charmer XD (wot-wot?) ”[…]'Oh dear, am I being asked out on a date?’ For a moment Richie was uncharacteristically flustered. He actually felt a blush rising in his cheeks. He had made the offer in a perfectly natural way, just as he had made it to Ben … except hadn’t he said something to Ben about owesies? Yes. But he hadn’t said anything about owesies to Beverly. Richie suddenly felt a bit weird. He had dropped his eyes, retreating from her amused glance, and realized now that her skirt had ridden up a bit when she shifted forward to drop the ice-cream cone in the litter barrel, and he could see her knees. He raised his eyes but that was no help; now he was looking at the beginning swells of her bosoms. Richie, as he usually did in such moments of confusion, took refuge in absurdity. 'Yes! A date!’ he screamed, throwing himself on his knees before her and holding his clasped hands up. 'Please come! Please come! I shall ruddy kill meself if you say no, ay-wot? Wot-wot?’ 'Oh, Richie, you’re such a fuzzbrain,’ she said, giggling again … but weren’t her cheeks also a trifle flushed? If so, it made her look prettier than ever. 'Get up before you get arrested.’“

Next Book: “The Eyes of the Dragon”

[moiraineswife]

I really love your post about Rhys. I like the character a lot but the fact that he is being constantly put on a pedestal takes away from the character from me. I find the fact that he sacrificed his legion for Myriam and Drakon particularly interesting because who else do we know that sent his friends to potential death? Wasn't that how Andras died? And while Tamlin was not putting himself at risk, the men he sent were part of his court. They were invested in what they were doing. Did Rhys's

legion have any ties to Myriam and Drakon or were they sacrificed for something that primarily affected Rhys? I am not saying that he is as far gone as Tamlin was in some points of the trilogy, but he is definitely not a special snowflake that makes ambiguous choices only when there is no other way.

Right I’m going to say some Even More Unpopular Things here: frankly, I consider what Tamlin did to be more “right” than what Rhys did (IN THIS INSTANCE). I think Tamlin and Rhys contrast-parallel each other a LOT in this series which I’ve written about before which I thought was really interesting until it just got so black and white ‘Rhys is right about everything; Tamlin is wrong about everything’. 

Setting aside their relationships with Feyre and Tamlin’s abuse and just stripping this back and looking at it based on ‘two leaders making decisions in war time scenarios’ I think what Rhys did here is infinitely worse than what Tamlin did. And the only reason it might not instantly be read that way is because of how it gets filtered through Feyre’s narrative, the way she condemns Tamlin but the way the novel (this bit is Jurian but it amounts to the same thing - all the characters love and absolve Rhys - as we the reader should too) praises Rhys. 

If you strip out the biased reactions though and just look at what they’re doing and why...Rhys is worse. 

Both of them are sacrificing their men. Both of them are doing this for a greater good. Rhys is the only character who is actually comfortable in doing this. Tamlin isn’t. Rhys will make small sacrifices that benefit the many and consider this a morally right action. Tamlin will not. (See: him sending Feyre away in ACOTAR despite her wanting to stay and help because he refuses to sacrifice her life to Amarantha even if it will save the rest of Prythian) 

So the sentries thing is something that Tamlin struggles with. Tamlin needs control and this manifests itself in several different ways. With Feyre it makes him overly protective and abusive and in trying to keep her safe he smothered her. When it comes to being a leader and matters of war it manifests itself in something more...Noble, I suppose, if entirely impractical. 

Rhys and Tamlin are BOTH actually quite self-sacrificing in a lot of ways. (I think Tamlin gets called selfish a lot - and I get it - but I also don’t believe it) Rhys’ form of self-sacrifice involves him making the hard decisions and taking the guilt for them and, for the most part, having himself be the ‘few’ that he chooses to harm in favour of protecting the ‘many’ (mostly his people). 

Tamlin is a lot more literal than that. Tamlin quite literally just wants to take everything upon himself. He wants to do everything by himself. He wants to take all of the risks and just get shit done alone. See: the way he marches off to deal with any breaching of court boundaries in ACOTAR, the way he works alone in ACOWAR and doesn’t tell anyone that he’s a double agent, he just gets it done himself. 

With regards to the sentries that was one of the cruellest things Amarantha could have done to him tbh. Rhys would have felt guilty as heck sending those sentries out but he’d have been able to justify and rationalise it to himself and he’d have been able to sleep at night because it’s necessary, he has no choice, and it’s for the greater good. Tamlin is driven much more by emotion than Rhys who is driven much more by pragmatism. 

The result of all this is that Tamlin stopped ordering the sentries to go over the wall and try and get themselves killed because he couldn’t stand the guilt (selfish, not, right/wrong, that’s where the debate enters into it and makes things INTERESTING because this is one of those rare things the novel doesn’t give us commentary on - we decide how we feel about this and it’s conflicting)  

The sentries actually begged Tamlin to let them go over the wall to die and try and give Prythian a bit of hope. He kept refusing and it was only when they got desperate that he allowed Andras to go over the wall where he met Feyre. Andras knew exactly why he was going over the wall, he knew exactly what a shot in the dark this was, he knew that he could die and he knew that that might not be enough to save them. But he went. He chose. 

And that’s what’s interesting here because the crux of this matter (for me) is that thing that Rhys gets praised for so much: choice. 

Tamlin’s sentries consented to his plan. They knew what they were doing. They knew why. They actively begged Tamlin to let them do it because it was the only shot they had. Andras chose. Andras went over the wall of his own volition. Andras died of his own volition. Andras sacrificed himself whereas Rhys sacrificed his soldiers. There’s a big difference. 

Obviously we don’t have the context of what happened with Rhys since we hear about it second-hand from the super-biased source that is Jurian. However I think, like, common sense dictates enough to say how this went down okay. It doesn’t say Rhys’ legion sacrificed themselves on his orders or anything it says that HE sacrificed them. Rhys made that choice. Not his soldiers. I am like 98% sure that if he went to them and just, okay guys we’re going to march into this castle and I’m going to get you all kidnapped, tortured and killed to save this one person, you cool with that? The overwhelming response would have been ‘uh, no???’ 

Also it doesn’t fit Rhys’ MO to tell people what he’s doing. Rhys makes executive decisions and doesn’t bother explaining his reasons behind them (see: everything UtM, tying the IC to Velaris and refusing to let them leave to save him/to keep them safe (which...is an awful lot like what Tamlin does to Feyre in ACOMAF, just saying) the CoN, his own sacrifice at the end of ACOWAR etc etc etc. Rhys does what Rhys thinks is right. end of story. 

Now, both of these actions were, perhaps, necessary. Miryam and Drakon were likely essential to winning the war and Rhys knew that. The deaths of his soldiers were necessary; in the same way that the death of Andras and the other Spring Court sentries were necessary to defeat Amarantha. 

This is where the moral debate of ‘was it justified/right/excusable’ should launch but instead ACOWAR tries to clumsily just tell us how it is. Feyre condemns Tamlin for killing the sentries then not standing by them with Ianthe (when he’s backed into a corner); Jurian tells us what a great dude Rhys is for having done this and it takes a reader to sort of sit there and.....Hold up dude, I don’t think so. 

But the problem is we have to do that over and over again. The narrative forces us to contradict it in the name of like...common sense over and over and over again. Because Rhys is NOT flawless. And I don’t particularly care how many times the story shoves down my throat what a tragic hero he is, how noble, how selfless, how good, the fact is he’s a ruthless, morally flawed, morally grey bastard and that’s just how it is. 

Tamlin and Rhys were set up as deliberate parallels to one another. They are opposites in almost every single regard: appearance, morals, leadership style, their relationships with Feyre, the way their courts are set up, how they think, how they act, how they operate, literally everything. And that’s interesting. Because the only part of this that’s a real clear-cut ‘Rhys is better’ is when it comes to the relationship with Feyre (which is also biased/set-up that way tbh (some of Tamlin’s lines in ACOWAR for example were so outrageously out of character that I just cringed at them - but it’s meant to make him seem like a misogynistic tool to Rhys’ uber feminist which is just...*rubs temples*)) 

When it comes to leadership style, morality, the choices they make as leaders caught up in a war, the sacrifices that they make, their motivations, intentions and the consequences of their actions, though, that’s all a grey area. Or it SHOULD have been a grey area. I said like twenty times before ACOWAR came out that I thought it would reinforce that greyness between the two of them. Tamlin is not a cardboard cut-out villain (like...every other villain in this series) and never has been. 

The dynamic between him and Rhys was compelling and interesting because it was not black and white. They were opposites, they went about things completely differently but it was not a case of ‘this way is right and this way is wrong’ it was a case of ‘these two characters are polar opposites and neither of them is completely right or completely wrong. There is merit and fault in both of them. They are grey characters. 

As far as ACOWAR is concerned, for the most part, hideous ooc high lord’s meeting aside, Tamlin’s greyness is reinforced. We’re reminded (sort of) of the things that he does right as well as the things that he does wrong. He’s a grey character. He’s made mistakes but he is trying (I’m talking about all of this in terms of him being high lord of spring NOT in terms of his relationship with Feyre, just to make that clear, there’s no grey area there for me) 

Tamlin’s arc should have, and did, focus on his actions as a high lord/leader. The problem was it wasn’t so much a sustained arc more as...a series of stepping-stone moments that were not connected or fleshed out enough to give him a proper redemption storyline. Instead I kind of ended up with whiplash being pulled back and forth between ‘he’s good, no he’s bad, no he’s good, no he’s bad, no he’s good’ - ‘he’s against us, he’s with us, he’s against us, he’s with us’ etc. It was sloppy and messy and, like almost everything else in this book, there was some real potential here it just wasn’t executed well at all. 

This is what should have happened with Rhys but in reverse. We should have seen him making questionable morally flawed decisions (see: the CoN fiasco) and being reminded that he is not flawless, he is a grey character as well, he has both faults and merit and at the end of the day he and Tamlin are both trying their best to make the most of the shitty hand of cards they’ve been dealt in this war and this world. 

Unfortunately what I got was the set-up of Rhys being a morally grey character once again...and zero follow-through. Where the narrative mostly left Tamlin’s greyness up to a reader to decide, it was shoved down our throats how Good Rhys is, how he is The Best Of Them (*gags a little*). So they’re both grey characters but someone comes along like Alice in Wonderland and tries to paint Rhys white. Most unfortunately that doesn’t actually change who or what he is it just makes me annoyed and frustrated because no, sorry, he’s not a great guy and I’m not buying what you’re selling. 

Rhys is a good character. Tamlin is a good character. They are both morally grey individuals and the dynamic between them is actually endlessly fascinating if you sit down and think about it yourself. The dynamic between them as it’s written in ACOWAR is endlessly frustrating because it SHOWS them as morally grey characters but then it TELLS us that Rhys is really great and is above all possible contempt or questioning with regards to his actions. So it falls flat and it feels forced and bland and oh god this book could have been so good and instead I’m just sitting here like W H Y.  

Bottom line as far as I see it: if SJM’s dedication to fawning over her own characters and making them (I include Feyre in this too since she suffered from this perfect airbrushing like Rhys, just not as much) perfect and beyond any possible criticism hadn’t prevailed over her dedication to telling a compelling story and writing INTERESTING instead of perfect characters this book could have been something special. And instead it was something bland, empty and forced and this is where I’m at. 

TL;DR: Let the characters speak for themselves. It is not an author’s job to tell me what to think and how to feel about their story and their characters. At a certain point you’ve got to trust your readers enough (and yourself, I guess) to read things in the way you want them to be read. Don’t spoonfeed them. Don’t force things. Don’t airbrush your characters to try and make them above criticism. It doesn’t work. We just end up with this mess. - Lauren’s problems with ACOWAR in a nutshell.