#i have a hard time caring about dynasts. the only dynasts i care about are the sforzas and they didn't get far enough to actually

[ghoul-haunted]

sextus pompey-mark antony but not in a way that fixes anyone

[paganminiskirt]

I love how Raditz uses him and Goku’s familial relationship to trick him into letting go of his tail so he can start whaling on him again, all the while having Gohan hostage in his pod. And then later on, Vegeta’s transformation into a great ape causes Goku to realize that he killed his own Grandpa Gohan all those years ago, accidentally or otherwise. It’s like this one biological side effect of his Saiyan heritage both robbed him of a relationship and prevented him from properly mourning once he realized what had happened, with his empathy and willingness to forgive being leveraged against him by those same Saiyans to destroy other familial bonds. It’s such a brutal introduction to a previously unknown part of your identity.

But then on Namek, Vegeta applies him & his father’s own situation to Gohan and Goku when he’s explaining the danger that the Frieza Force represent, saying how “they don’t have to be stronger than you to beat you, they could take your son hostage.” Obviously he’s referencing his childhood removal from King Vegeta’s “care,” but a side effect of that arrangement is that the King himself isn’t a tangible presence in his son’s life, certainly not by the time he’s on Namek. Vegeta does have something vaguely resembling a father figure when he makes that comparison, but it’s not him, it’s Frieza.

Frieza & Vegeta’s relationship is certainly not parental on an emotional level, but the mechanisms of keeping people as indentured servants naturally tend towards paternalism, and it’s obvious that Frieza has a weird little fixation on him besides. The entire Namek saga lowkey constructs this wildly uncomfortable parallel between Goku’s care for & devotion to Gohan, (putting himself in harms way and crossing between entire worlds to keep him safe over and over again,) and Frieza’s similarly relentless but antithetically possessive & degrading relationship with Vegeta, (repeatedly demanding that he be brought back to him alive no matter how much of a nuisance he becomes, to the point of having him nursed back to health after Zarbon claps his ass just so he can torture him himself.)

It’s Gohan who first notices that Captain Ginyu stole his dad’s body, and Gohan who keeps fighting through exhaustion and extreme violence before Goku gets to Namek. Later on in the Buu Saga, Goku realizes the projection of Gohan inside Majin Buu isn’t really his son quicker than anyone else does - their emotional bond is sturdy enough to transcend the physical, even after it’s repeatedly acknowledged that a young child shouldn’t be involved in situations as gruesome as these.

Compare that to Vegeta, who’s only visible relationship with his father comes from sharing violence as a form of giddy self-aggrandizement, until he sells him to a more powerful stranger - which he can’t even say was especially wrong by their own standards, the transaction as much a moral injury as an emotional one. As Frieza pointed out during his fight with Goku, he literally just beat the Saiyans at their own game, picking up where King Vegeta left off by using his son for the benefit of himself & the empire instead of for the benefit of his father & homeworld.

The fact alone that his relationship with his biological dad can begin to amalgamate with his relationship to a person who calls him a pet speaks volumes about how emotionally warped Vegeta was from the beginning. It’s a small wonder he clings to the dynastic propaganda of the Saiyans so hard, using the title he gets from the King in spite of the fact that his reaction to the man himself’s demise is so muted & repressed that it’s depicted using the imagery of a child encased in a mountain of corpses. It's the only thing that can potentially delineate what happened to him as unjust & undeserved - if it’s the violence itself that’s wrong, then what does that make him, his values, his scattered family, their entire culture. What does that make everything he’s been told since the moment of his birth.

And even in that scene where Vegeta is shrugging off his dad’s death and the planet’s destruction, the messenger mentions how Frieza offers his sympathies: as if Frieza isn’t the same person who killed him, this sickly pretense of warmth intended only to cover it up. You might recall how Goku is always mussing Gohan’s hair, and everyone knows that infamous scene where Vegeta strokes his hair before knocking the wind out of him - which can be read as a precursor to that horribly intimate beatdown Frieza lays on Vegeta and the others later, the one he had been planning to give Vegeta this whole time which is only compounded in brutality since Vegeta thwarted him, the one where he licks blood from Vegeta’s mouth off his face as he holds him up by his neck like a dog with it’s pup. It re-contextualizes the head stroke/brutal attack combo Vegeta pulled on Gohan as him acting out the sadistic objectification Frieza raised him on using another Saiyan child.

And in the end it comes full circle, with Vegeta using his last moments to pass the vendetta of himself and his own father on to Goku and his line. And this happens willingly, as a productive challenge to the Saiyan’s culture of domination, unlike the grotesque re-appropriation of that same culture that we’re presented with when Frieza takes Vegeta from home: Goku assumes this mantle after Vegeta is dead and fully incapable of forcing him. He also contradicts the callous disregard Vegeta displayed during the aforementioned scene with the Saibamen by treating his corpse with so much care. He holds him, he buries him. And you could argue that it’s better than he deserves at that point, but like. I think the fact that the gesture is unwarranted is a part of the point.

[anghraine]

My deep reservations about Aragorn's kingship arc are sometimes a bit ridiculous even to me, because I actually find him the most interesting and likable when we see that he truly wants to be king of Gondor, for its own sake. I like him navigating the dynastic messiness around his claim, I enjoy seeing his drive and willingness to maneuver and camouflage aspects of his personality.

There are some pretty mundane, realistic aspects of his rise to the kingship that I can admire in a way, like how he shifts personas between Rohan and Gondor, or how he's careful to stick to a single and simple claim as heir of Isildur rather than the inconsistent mess Arvedui was trying to push. And of course, there's the way in which book Denethor's severe charisma is so intensely reminiscent of Aragorn to Pippin's eyes, and the Appendix describing Denethor as kingly and his advice to his father as identical to Aragorn's except about Gandalf. Also, the only major difference between Aragorn's and Denethor's claims being seniority by patrilineal primogeniture is such a prosaic, arbitrary thing to have so much mysticism attached to it.

But I like the prosaic side, honestly, and I like that Aragorn is allowed to be pretty openly ambitious without his heroism being compromised by it.

If the narrative didn't work quite so hard to layer over the mystical kingship stuff, I could probably buy into it much more, honestly. And that's partly just a matter of personal preference—I can enjoy a fictional rise to monarchic power, but when it's a fictional rise to mystically or divinely legitimized monarchic power, my soul just revolts.

We probably all have points with different narratives where we want to engage but for whatever reason, just cannot take some element on its own terms. And to me, it feels a bit unfair to engage in a way that comes down to "why is this book someone else wrote not catering to my personal preferences?" I find that an annoying way to engage with media generally!

But there's part of me that would really like Aragorn if he ended up going home to Arnor and rebuilding it with Arwen and the Northern Dúnedain and the other peoples there, rather than building Gondor up into an imperial power. Elrond can deal.

But it's not fair because that's not at all the story Tolkien was ever going to write or what he was trying to do with Aragorn's arc. It's just that sometimes, Aragorn seems to come close to a character who could have that arc—one that would probably heighten rather than diminish his resemblance to Denethor, predictably one of my faves—and I find Aragorn really compelling at those times. And then welp, we're back to spiritual kingship via primogeniture.

[tarnishedxknight]

Meta Topic: Why does Ashelia never remarry?

{out of dalmasca} The topic of why Ashelia doesn’t remarry after losing Rasler is something I’ve thought a lot about from time to time. There are various convenient, fanservice, shipping, or even semi-humorous reasons that could be offered up, but I also feel that Ashelia may have many reasons at each of the stages of her life as to why she shouldn’t, couldn’t, or wouldn’t want to remarry that are supportable by canon. In this meta, I’ll propose some reasons why she remained single in canon until at least the age of 30, as broken down by the stages of her life. (Note: I’m not including Revenant Wings in this because I honestly never got very far in it and it always seemed weirdly extraneous to me.)

Age 17-19: Ashe loses Rasler, goes into hiding, and joins the Resistance. 

It’s certainly understandable why Ashelia wouldn’t want to remarry right after Rasler was killed. It was a shock, losing a friend that young. Although I’m not entirely convinced Ashe was in love with Rasler, she did love him, as they had been friends since childhood, so it was definitely a loss she felt. She needed time to grieve on a personal level.

On a political level, she also lost just about the only person she could marry who was of her same special Dynast King bloodline, with both hers and Rasler’s Houses being descended from those of King Raithwall’s sons. Ashe had to feel like she was now part of a dying breed, because in actuality, she was. It’s a lot to put on the shoulders of a seventeen year-old, even in a country where the age of adulthood is 16 and with a young lady who has been groomed for this sort of life from childhood.

After her father is assassinated, Ashe is suddenly thrust into a state of freedom and independence such as she’d never known before. She went from being a sheltered princess kept like a bird in a cage whose father shielded her too much from war, weaponry, politics, and the suffering of the masses... to suddenly becoming one of the masses. This was a tumultuous and angry time for her, but also one of intense personal discovery, growth, and development. She improved with the sword, learned to navigate her own safety and survival, and lost some of her innocence and naivety. All of these were good things, but they also kept things like dating and marriage on the backburner for her simply from a free time and practicality aspect.

On an emotional level, Ashelia probably didn’t want to marry anyone at this time. Not only had she lost her husband and father, she also lost Basch, who in canon at the very least was a friend and a mentor. My versions of them have their relationship being even more developed than that, so learning that he betrayed her and her father and killed him had to be a shock to her system. It must have been hard for her to believe, and coming around to accepting it had to be a very angry and painful internal journey for her. Also, as far as she knew, he was convicted, sentenced to death, and executed for murdering her father. I believe that, even despite her anger at what she thought Basch had done, she still grieved for him. However, the upshot was that she had cared for and trusted someone close to her all her life, only to have him betray her family. That had to have Ashe taking a few steps back with regard to trusting people in general, and it had to have her rather unwilling to get close to anyone else.

Age 19: Ashe & Co. adventure to regain her throne and end the war.

During this time she’s not thinking about marriage, she’s thinking about legitimizing herself so that she can take back her throne, actually doing it, delivering Dalmasca from Archadian occupation, and finding a way to end the war. That’s a full schedule, heh. Although for my version of her, it’s during this adventuring time that she slowly begins to love Basch but doesn’t realize it yet, and in canon we know she had kindof a little crush on Balthier that never went anywhere. Other than that, she’s focused on her duty to Dalmasca and setting things right for her people. Personal wants, needs, and endeavors are somewhat set aside at this time.

Age 19-20: Re-establishing the government of Dalmasca and rebuilding Rabanastre, and Ashe’s coronation.

Ashe isn’t coronated until a year after the end of the war, as is mentioned in Penelo’s letter to Larsa. So for that time, Ashe is alone, and as Penelo says in the letter, she “grows farther and farther away from us, but I guess that’s how it has to be. She is queen now, after all.” What this says to me is that 1) she is recognized as queen even before she is coronated, 2) she is likely very busy with the many details of running a country, especially one that needs to be rebuilt and to recover from a war, and 3) that appearances are unfortunately very important to her. She can no longer associate with those she adventured with, but I suspect this is not because she doesn’t want to, but rather because she needs to maintain a certain level of authority and distance above the masses.

Why might Ashe care about appearances? Because she’s the first queen Dalmasca has had in a very long time, or perhaps ever. In a patriarchal kingdom, becoming queen at 19 after your people have thought you dead for two years, after they’ve had their capital city partially destroyed and occupied, and after they’ve lost their previous king who likely reigned for longer than many people in the capital have even been alive, Ashe has some pretty big shoes to fill. It is an unfortunate side effect of being a young, new, female ruler in a patriarchal land that, in order to seem halfway as authoritative, professional, respectable, and reliable as her father, she has to be ten times more diligent about her image, her reputation, and her words and actions, especially in public. People will be judging her harshly or at least scrutinizing everything she says and does through the lens of... is she going to be as good as her father? Can we trust her? Is she strong enough? Ashe has to not only do her job as queen, she had to also live up to the lofty expectations that her father and her entire bloodline have set in the minds of the masses for centuries before her.

Because of this... I think she’d see marrying someone as completely off the table. If she’s trying to prove to her skeptical public that she has what it takes to be a just, stable, and reliable ruler despite being young and female, marrying a man isn’t the way to do it. Assuming she wouldn’t choose someone who would then seek to usurp her power and make himself more of an active king than merely a consort, marrying a man might automatically have her people thinking she’s going to pass the throne over to him, or at least give him a good chunk of her power and authority. Ashelia didn’t want to do that at all. She’s queen, and she doesn’t want a king. I think it was very important to Ashelia at this time that she remain alone and prove to her people visually at first and through her actions long-term that she is going to be their sole ruler and that she can handle it herself. Having a husband... would cloud that issue a lot in the minds of her people.

So yeah, establishing herself as a strong solitary ruler was important to her, and she didn’t want a king. A consort, sure. When she’s ready. After all, she’s going to need heirs and loneliness is definitely a thing. But the question is, why isn’t she ready yet, and what would make her ready?

Age 20-30: Ashe reigns officially as Queen of Dalmasca. 

This... is the most curious time for me as far as Ashe remaining single. Until she’s coronated, sure, I get that. Even two, three, maybe four years after that? It’s understandable. She wants to reign for a while on her own before introducing a husband/consort into the mix. I totally get that too. But... ten years? Until she’s 30? That... doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. 30 is fairly old in “medieval times” settings. People didn’t live as long back then, but I guess you could easily argue that the Final Fantasy “medieval-style” or “steampunk” worlds don’t equate at all to the rules of actual historical periods. Even so, for a single queen with no heirs whose bloodline will die with her if anything were to happen to her and whose throne and country would be thrown into turmoil without a ruler... you’d think she’d want an heir fast. But at was seen in the narrative laid out in the developer notes for Fortress, the sequel to FFXII that was sadly never completed, that story takes place ten years into the future from the end of the FFXII main game, and Ashelia is still unwed. To me, the fact that she’s still single ten years after the end of FFXII says that there’s another reason why she’s not marrying. She’s waiting for something, or something is preventing her from marrying.

The first possible explanation is that there just are no suitable candidates. Nabradia’s ruling family is gone, Larsa is too young for her and it’s no longer necessary to ingratiate herself to Archadia since the war ended and peace was negotiated between her and Larsa. No one Rozarrian is an option if peace with Archadia is to be maintained. So... who does she marry? Who would be enough on her level as far as royalty or with regard to her rare bloodline, who could she trust enough, and who would be good for Dalmasca as far as the duties of a consort are concerned? It’s a big decision, and she’s having to essentially make it alone. Maybe it’s just that she had been unable to find a candidate that checks all the necessary boxes as far as what she needs in a consort not only for herself but for Dalmasca.

The second possible explanation is that she does not intend to ever marry again. Maybe the trust just isn’t there. Maybe she’s not willing to connect with someone like that again, or she doesn’t want to personally have children or be a wife herself. In this case, I think she would choose to name her own heir rather than birth heirs herself. Again, however, this would take time and it’s a big decision she can’t make quickly or lightly. For all we know, though, something like this did occur and we just don’t know it because Fortress was never completed. Perhaps if it was, we would have gotten a lot more detail on what Ashe has been doing for this ten-year time period of her life.

In the same vein, then, maybe she did remarry, and we just never got to know that and never got to know who she chose because the details of Fortress were never developed. Maybe the devs just thought it inconsequential to mention but it still happened somewhere in that ten-year time period. I doubt it, though.

Age 30: Fortress and beyond... 

Okay. Here where I go off the rails and I’m sorry for that, haha. But listen. I will die on this Basch x Ashe shipping hill if it’s the last thing I do, never change my mind, haha. Maybe... she’s waiting for Basch. Or at the very least, she developed feelings for Basch like I mentioned above during her adventuring years, and no one else has ever quite measured up to him in her mind. After the end of FFXII, Basch is left impersonating his deceased brother in Archadia in order to help a young emperor Larsa to maintain political control and to keep the Judge Magisters from turning on Larsa and each other. He in some cases acts like, almost a regent in that he guides, protects, and advises Larsa through the first vulnerable years of his rule. At ten years after the end of FFXII, Larsa would be 22 years old. That’s still kindof on the young side, and to be honest, unless there was another equally powerful and trustworthy figure like Gabranth (Basch) who could fill the role of keeping the Judges at bay, Larsa is always going to need that protection. So Basch is unfortunately... stuck. Indefinitely.

Canon (of course) does not support this theory at all, for supposedly at the end of Fortress, Ashelia throws Basch under the proverbial bus to save herself, leaves him to fight a god alone and die, and his soul ends up in some lonely, forgotten, immortal state of guarding the location of the fortress for eternity. I. I just.*sighs and rubs temples* THAT’S A LOAD OF BULL FOR SO MANY REASONS. Okay sorry, I just needed to get that out, haha. I really reject canon on this aspect because I don’t think Ashelia would have done that. Larsa did it too, supposedly, and that’s even more difficult for me to believe. Zargabaath was totally mischaracterized as well, it seems, in the storyboards, so like... Fortress has credibility issues with me as far as consistency of personality of the characters. So I use the information we got from the dev notes more as guidelines and springboards for ideas rather than hard, confirmed canon. 

So that means there’s still a chance that Ashe is holding out for Basch, and listen, nothing would make me happier. In my head Basch is already back in Dalmasca and he and Ashe are having adorable babies together because that’s what I choose to believe. Eh-hem.*desperately clings to my OTP*

Haha, okay but in all seriousness, I really don’t know the reason why Ashe is still single at age 30. I’ve made some guesses, but none of them really stand out as being the obvious the answer. Does anyone else have any ideas? I’d love to hear them! =)

[janecrockeyre]

scum villain is a greek tragedy disguised as a regular tragedy disguised as a comedy disguised as a danmei

this is going to be long, and this is only PART ONE.

a.k.a, Analysing the plot of Scum Villain’s Self Saving System through Aristotle’s Poetics, because I Have Mental Issues

Part One: Introduction and the Tragic Hero

Scum Villain’s Self Saving System is a tragedy disguised as a comedy, unless you’re Shen Yuan, in which case it’s a mixture of a romance and a survival horror. It's a fever dream. It's a horrible, terrible book that made me feel new undiscovered emotions when I finished reading it. 

The thing is... SVSSS shares characteristics with some of the most famous tragedies in the West, such as Oedipus Rex, Medea, Antigone, the Oresteia... if you haven’t read these, I’ll explain everything. But the gist of my argument is this: SVSSS is the perfect tragedy. In triplicate. 

Tragedy as a genre is old as balls and so it has meant slightly different things to different people over the last few thousand years. I'll be focusing on ancient Greek tragedy, which was performed at the yearly Festival of Dionysus in Athens during the 500-350s BC (give or take a hundred years). Aristotle, when writing about this very specific subset of tragedy, had no idea that one day Scum Villain would be written, and then that I would be using his work as a way to look at Shen Qingqiu’s Funky Transmigration Mistake. Anyway!

Greek tragedy greatly influenced European dramatic tradition. I have a lot of opinions about white academics idolising and upholding the classics as the "paragon of culture" but I'll withhold them for now. I have no idea if MXTX has read Greek tragedy or not, so don't take this as me saying they are writing it. 

In my opinion, tragedy is a universal human constant. We are surrounded by pain and hurt and none of it makes any sense, so we seek to process that pain through drama, art, literature, etc. We want to understand why pain happens, and how it happens, and try to make sense of the senseless. The universe is cold and cruel and random. Tragedy eases some of that pain. 

On that note: Just because I am analysing Scum Villain through a Greek lens doesn't mean that it was written that way. I'm pasting an interpretation onto the book when there's probably a very rich and deep history of Chinese tragedy that I just don't know about. If you ever want to talk about that, please, god, hit me up, I would love to learn about it!! 

Anyway, tragedy. MXTX is excellent at it! Mo Dao Zu Shi? Painful dynastic family tragedy. Heaven Official's Blessing? Mostly romance, but she managed to get that pure pain in there, huh? 

But in my opinion, Scum Villain holds the crown for the most tragic of her stories. MDZS was more of a mystery. TGCF was more of a romance. Neither of them shy away from their tragic elements. 

Scum Villain would fit right in between the work of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. How? Let me show you. Join me on my mystery tour into the world of "Aristotle Analyses Danmei..."

Part One: The Tragic Hero

What is a tragic hero? Generally, Greek tragic heroes are united by the same key characteristics. He must be imperfect, having a "fatal flaw" of some kind. He must have something to lose. And he must go from fortune to misfortune thanks to that fatal flaw. 

There are two (technically three) tragic protagonists in SVSSS and all of them are tragic in different but formulaic ways. Each protagonist has their own version of “hamartia” or a “fatal flaw”. 

Actually, hamartia isn’t necessarily a flaw - rather, it is a thing which makes the audience pity and fear for them, a careful imperfection, a point of weakness in the character’s morality or reasoning that allows for bad things to happen to them. For example, in Oedipus Rex, the king Oedipus has a “fatal flaw” of always wanting to find the truth, but this isn’t exactly a flaw, right? Note: this flaw can be completely unwitting, as we see with Shen Yuan. It can also be something that the protagonist is born with, some kind of trait from birth or very young. 

Shen Yuan

Shen Yuan’s “hamartia” is his rigid adherence to fate and his inability to read a situation as anything but how he thinks it ought to be. He believes that Bingmei will grow into Bingge, and it takes several years, two deaths, and some truly traumatising sex to convince him otherwise. 

Shen Jiu

Shen Jiu’s fatal flaw is his cruelty. It is his own sadistic treatment and abuse of Binghe which directly leads to his eventual dismemberment. This is kind of a no-brainer. Of course, it isn't all that simple, and as an audience we pity him for his cruelty as much as we fear it because we know it comes from his own abuse as a child. This just makes him even more tragic. Delicious. 

Luo Binghe

Luo Binghe’s fatal flaw is a complicated mix of things. It is his position as the “protagonist” which compels him to act in certain ways and be forced to suffer. It is his half-demonic heritage, something entirely out of his control, which sets in motion his tragic reversal of fortune when he gets yeeted into the Abyss. He also, much like Shen Yuan, has the propensity to jump to conclusions and somehow make 2 + 2 = 5. 

As well as having their respective “flaws”, all three protagonists match the rough outline of a good tragic hero in another way: they are in a position of great wealth and power. Even when you split the different characters into different “versions”, this still holds true. Yes, Luo Binghe is raised a commoner by a washerwoman foster mother, but his dad is an emperor and he also ends up becoming an emperor himself. 

Yes, Shen Jiu is an ex-slave and a victim of abuse himself, but Shen Qingqiu is a powerful peak lord with an entire mountain’s worth of resources at his back. 

Shen Yuan is a second generation new money rich kid. 

Bingge is a stereotypical protagonist with a golden finger. Bingmei is a treasured and loved disciple with a good reputation and a privileged seat by his shizun’s side. 

In a tragedy, having this kind of good fortune at the beginning of your story is dangerous. Chaucer says that tragedy is (badly translated into modern english) “a certain story / of him that stood in great prosperity / and falls out of high degree / into misery, and ends up wretchedly”. If we follow this line of thinking, a good tragedy is about someone who has a lot to lose, losing everything because of one fatal point of weakness that they fail to address or understand. 

If we look at Shakespeare, this is what makes King Lear such a fantastic tragic protagonist. He is a king in control of most of England, who from his own lack of wisdom and excess of pride, decides to split his kingdom apart to give to his daughters, favouring his murderous, double crossing progeny, and condemning his only actually filial daughter to death. He loses his kingdom, his mind, and his beloved daughter, all because of his own stupidity.

This brings us to:

Part Two: Peripeteia

This reversal of fortunes is called peripeteia. It is the moment where the entire plot shifts, and the hero’s fortunes go from good to bad. Think of it like one of those magic eye puzzles, where you stare at the image until a 3D shark appears, except you realise the shark was always there, you just couldn't ever see it, waiting for you, hungry, deadly, always lurking just behind that delightful pattern of random blue squiggles. 

Each tragic hero has their own moment of peripeteia in SVSSS, sometimes several:

Shen Qingqiu

In the original PIDW, SQQ’s peripeteia presumably occurs when he finds out that Bingge didn’t perish in the Abyss but has actually been training hard to come and pay him back. There’s really not much I’m interested in saying here - as a villain, OG!SQQ is cut and dry, and the audience doesn’t really feel any pity or fear for him. As Shen Yuan often mentions, what the audience feels when they see OG!SQQ is bloodlust and sick satisfaction. There is also the trial at Huan Hua Palace, which I will talk about in Shen Yuan’s section. 

Shen Yuan (SQQ 2.0)

One of SY’s most poggers moment of peripeteia is the glorious, terrifying section between hearing Binghe for the first time after the Abyss moment, and getting shoved into the Water Prison. 

“Behind him, a low and soft voice came: “Shizun?”

Shen Qingqiu’s neck felt stiff as he slowly turned his head. Luo Binghe’s face was the most frightening thing he had ever seen.

The scariest thing about it was that the expression on his face was not cold at all. His smile wasn’t sharp like a knife. Rather, it showed a kind of bone-deep gentleness and amiability.”

This is the moment of true horror for Shen Yuan, because he knows what happens next: the plot unfurls before him, inevitable and painful, and he knows that death awaits him at Luo Binghe's hands (lol). Compare it with the bone deep certainty with which he faces his own downfall during the sham of a trial later in the chapter (I’ve bolded the important part):

“In the original work, Qiu Haitang’s appearance signified only one thing: Shen Qingqiu’s complete fall from grace. [...] Shen Qingqiu’s heart streamed with tears. Great Master… I know you’re doing this for my own good, but I’ll actually suffer if she speaks her words clearly. This truly is the saying “not frightened of doing a shameful deed, just afraid the ghost (consequences) will come knocking”!”

After the peripeteia is usually the denouement where the plot wraps up and the threads are all tied together leaving no loose ends, but because this tragedy isn’t Shen Yuan’s but the former Shen Jiu’s, it’s impossible to finish. 

Shen Yuan cannot provide the meaningful answers that the narrative demands because 1) he doesn’t have any memory of doing anything, and 2) he wasn’t the person who did them. Narratively, he cannot follow the same path as the former SQQ because he lacks the same fatal flaw: cruelty. 

This is why Binghe doesn’t kill him - because he loves him, rather than despises him. And this is why Shen Yuan has to sacrifice himself and die for Luo Binghe in order to save him from Xin Mo: because the narrative demands that denouement follows peripeteia, and SQQ’s fate is in the hands of the narrative. 

(Side note: I believe that this literal death also represents the death of OG!SQQ's tragic arc. The body that committed all those crimes must die to satisfy the narrative. SQQ must die, like burning down a forest, so that new growth can sprout from the ashes. After this, Shen Yuan's story has more room to develop instead.)

It must happen to show Bingmei that SQQ loves him too. And this brings us to Bingmei.

Bingmei

Bingmei has two succinct moments of utter downfall. The first is a literal fall - his flaw, his demonic heritage, leads his beloved shizun to throw him down into the Abyss. From his point of view, SQQ is punishing him simply for the status of his birth. He rapidly goes from being loved and cherished unconditionally, to being the victim of an assassination attempt. 

He realises that he is totally unlovable: that for the crimes of his species that he never had a hand in, he must pay the price as well: that his shizun is so righteous that no matter what love there was between them, if SQQ sees a demon, he will kill it. Even if that demon is Bingmei. 

The second moment is when SQQ dies for him. Again, from his point of view, he was chasing after a man who was struggling to see him as a human being. Shen Qingqiu’s death makes Bingmei realise that he has been completely misunderstanding his shizun: that SQQ would literally die for him, the ultimate act of self sacrifice from love: that SQQ loved him despite his demon heritage. 

Much like King Lear holding the corpse of his daughter and wailing in sheer grief and pain because he did this, he caused this, Bingmei gets to hold his shizun's cold body and cry his eyes out and know that it was his fault. (Kind of.)

(Yes, I’m bringing Shakespeare into this, no I am not justifying myself)

Maybe I'm a bit sadistic, but that scene slaps. Let me show you a comparison of scenes so you get the picture. 

Re-enter KING LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Captain, and others following

KING LEAR

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so

That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;

She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

[...]

 KING LEAR

And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,

Look there, look there!

Dies

Versus this scene in SVSSS: 

Luo Binghe turned a deaf ear to everything else, greatly agitated and at a loss of what to do. He was still holding Shen Qingqiu’s body, which was rapidly cooling down. It seemed like he wanted to call for him loudly and forcefully shake him awake, yet he didn’t dare to, as if he was afraid of being scolded. He said slowly, “Shizun?”

[...]

Luo Binghe involuntarily held Shen Qingqiu closer.

He said in a small voice, “I was wrong, Shizun, I really… know that I was wrong.

“I… I didn’t want to kill you…”

PAIN. SO MUCH BEAUTIFUL PAIN. Yes, I know Shakespeare isn’t Athenian, but he was inspired by the good old stuff and he also knew how to write a perfect tragedy on his own terms. Anyway. I’ll find more Greek examples later.

This post was a bit all over the place, but I hope it has been fun to read. Part Two will be coming At Some Point, Who Knows When. This is a bit messy and unedited, but hey, I’m not getting paid or graded, so you can eat any typos or errors. Unless you’re here to talk to me about Chinese tragedy, in which case, please pull up a seat, let me get you a drink, make yourself at home.

ps: if you want to retweet this, here is the promo tweet!

[whentheynameyoujoy]

Yup, Sure Was a Finale

I had an epiphany. The reason why I never re-watched the final two parts of Sozin’s Comet even though I’ve popped in episodes at random many times over the years isn’t that I can’t bear the sadness of seeing one of the best, most engaging narratives out there come to an end.

It’s simply that the finale isn’t all that good.

Some honorable mentions of what was enjoyable.

(+) This

Just this.

(+) The Church of Zutara has another convert

“Are you sure they don’t get together?” Hubster, 2020

(+) The tragedy of Azula

And the fact that it’s acknowledged as such. I hope Zuko will do his best to get her help and have a relationship with her…

(+) Sokka being a big bro

And the whole airship sequence in general. It’s wonderfully paced and plotted, with moments of humor, real stakes, Toph being both badass and a scared crying kid, Sokka strategizing and protecting, Suki saving the day, and non-benders being instrumental in thwarting the bad guy firebender’s plans. Would be shame if Bryke never portrayed them this capable ever again…

And now for the main course.

(-) Blink and its over

The wrap-up feels too quick (hashtag Needs More ROtK-style False Endings). A part of this is due to how fast the story goes from the thick of the action to hastily tying up a bunch of loose ends, but the larger issue is how Book 3’s uneven pacing comes home to roost. After spending half a season on filler episodes that at best subtly flesh out established characters while dancing around a huge lionturtle-shaped hole, and at worst contradict the theme of “no one is born bad” with “you’re a hot mess because your great-grandfathers didn’t get along too well”, the frantic “go go go” rush of the second half screeches to a halt with “they won and everyone was happy because now the right people have power and it will be all good from now on yup nothing more to deal with baiiiii”.

Yes, I know, it’s a kids’ show. But goddamn, this particular kids’ show has proven so many times it can do better than the expected tropiness. Showing the characters in their roles as builders of a new world was the least that could have been done.

Oh well!

(-) Ursa

We’ll never know. There will never be a story that delves into this. Yup. Shall forever remain but an intriguing mystery. Is good, though. Mystery is better than a story where Ursa shares her son’s penchant for forgetfulness. Imagine how embarrassing that would be. Speaking of which…

(-) What does Mai see in this jerkbender?

Look, I like to harp a lot on the mess of inconsistent writing that’s Mai but let’s unpack this scene from her perspective, shall we?

Zuko forgot about her! It totally slipped his mind that the one person who prioritized the safety of his dumb ass was rotting in the worst prison in the Fire Nation—because of him! And she was rotting there long enough after the final Agni Kai for the news of Zuko’s upcoming coronation to spread and her uncle to feel sufficiently secure to release her. But then the coronation scene is attended by every single member of Gaang & Friends that was imprisoned?

So what this tells me is that either a) the invasion force had the ability to break themselves out the whole time and for some reason decided not to exercise it until after the war was over, b) Zuko forgot about them as well and no one thought to remind him there were prisons full of POWs until Mai arrived, or, and that’s even better, c) Zuko took care to free every single resistance fighter while making sure Mai would be the one to stay behind bars.

Never thought I’d say this but Mai? Honey? You deserve so much better.

(-) “What does Katara want?”

Asked no one in the writers’ room ever, apparently.

This is not so much anti Cataang as anti romance stories that pay attention to the needs, opinions, and wants of only one partner in general. Over the previous 60 episodes, Katara actively expressed romantic interest in Aang exactly, wait for it,

Once.

And it got retconned out of relevance by the following two interactions where the possibility of a romantic relationship came up, making the Headband dance pretty easy to reclassify as just one of those examples where Aang “teaches” Katara to have fun (as if one of the main obstacles to her having fun wasn’t him constantly fooling around and offloading his duties). And because the writers not only didn’t succeed in portraying Katara’s internal state of mind, but also failed to root her reluctance to pursue a relationship in outside circumstances that could change, her sudden state of unconfused once Aang steps into the spotlight has a single canonical explanation that as much as approaches coherency.

The fact is, though, that trying to interpret canon Cataang from a Watsonian perspective is an exercise in foolishness. Because there is no Watsonian justification for the ship and never has been. Bryke simply conceived of Katara as nothing but a tropey prize for Aang, never saw her as anything beyond that, and were perfectly happy to go on and immortalize her as a passive broodmare for the rest of her life.

And I fully intend to die mad about it.

(-) Iroh dips

OK, it’s been long apparent that the show doesn’t intend to do anything about Iroh’s complicity in AzulOzai’s regime in any meaningful way, and that his sole motivation for doing anything whatsoever is Zuko whom he views as a replacement son which is supposed to be good for some reason. But the finale has him abandon even that, and instead turns him full-on YOLO, idgaf anymore. It really throws Iroh’s supposed love for Zuko into doubt when his last act in the entire show is to take a half-educated 16-year old with no political savvy or an heir to secure a dynastic continuity and plomp him on the throne of a war-mongering imperialist regime where the entirety of the militarist and ruling class is guaranteed to fight him tooth and nail for power.

(I sure hope Mai’s ready to start popping out babies by tea-time otherwise the whole country is fukd in about a week)

Christ, how hard would it be to have Iroh keep the throne warm for a few years while Zuko is getting ready to succeed him? Not only would it make the whole FN reformation bit quite likelier to occur, it would require Iroh’s hedonistic ass to actually sacrifice something for once. And not having Zuko ascend to power, instead spending some time bettering and educating himself first, would be a wonderful message that no matter what you endured and overcame, you never stop growing. A kids’ show, remember?

(-) The conquering of Ba Sing Se

Gee, I feel so blessed to have my attention diverted from battlefields which actually matter to an old dude vanity project I would have been perfectly happy to assume resolved itself off-screen.

The White Lotus in general just bugs me. I was fine with the individual characters and their overall passivity when they were portrayed as lone dissenters living under circumstances where it wasn’t really possible for any single person to mount a meaningful resistance. But as members of a far-reaching shadowy organization that’s left the real fight to a bunch of kids for 59 episodes straight and didn’t turn up until a perfect opportunity presented itself to take control of the largest city in the world and bask in the spotlight?

Yeah, no.

Similarly to the lionturtle-ex-machina, the White Lotus represents a huge missed opportunity for a season-long storytelling. Here’s just a brief list of what they could have been doing throughout Book 3:

orchestrating a Fire Nation uprising;

gathering those directly persecuted by AzulOzai’s regime to help Zuko keep his hold on power once he’s crowned;

establishing themselves as a viable alternative to Ozai;

sabotaging Fire Nation’s war efforts from the inside;

countering Fire Nation propaganda (Asha Greyjoy’s pinecones, anyone?);

running a supply network to alleviate the suffering of Earth Kingdom citizens.

Instead, they sit on their asses until the time comes to claim personal glory.

You know what, good on Bryke for making me conclude that in comparison, the Freedom Fighters were perfectly unproblematic, actually.

(-) Fire Lord Dead-by-Dawn

Yes, a kids’ show, I know! But ffs, this is the same kids’ show that came up with Long Feng and portrayed courtly intrigue, kingly puppets, secret police, spy networks, and information wars. Was it really too much of me to expect something other than “enlightened despot solves everything”? Especially if said enlightened despot has persisting anger issues, no personal support system, no base of followers, and no political experience whatsoever?

If Zuko’s actually serious about regaining the Fire Nation’s honor (i.e. by dismantling the country’s military machine, decolonizing the Earth Kingdom, paying reparations to everyone and their lemur, and funding any and all cultural restoration projects Aang and the SWT come up with), then there is no way, no way in the universe that he doesn’t face a civil war, deposing, and execution within a month.

One reason why his future as a Fire Lord seems rather bleak is that little’s been shown about the actual subjects of AzulOzai’s regime. While we get a vague reassurance that “no Toph, they’re not born bad” (le shockings), they largely remain a voiceless uniform mass of brainwashed clapping seals. What is their view on the Fire Nation’s crimes? Do they associate their condition with their country’s war-mongering? How will they react when Zuko starts dismantling the country piece by piece to rebuild it, bringing it to economic ruin? What will they do when noble Ozai loyalists come out of the woodwork and begin rounding them up under the banner of “Make the Fire Nation Great Again?”

I have no idea, and Zuko doesn’t either because he’s unironically more qualified to rule the Earth Kingdom than his own people.

You know what would have been better? Fire Lord Iroh, White Lotus pulling the strings to maintain the regime, and Crown Prince/People’s Champion Zuko travelling the Fire Nation with Aang and an army of tutors to promote the new boss, only to realize that absolute monarchy is kinda crap for the people he’s one day supposed to rule and gaining their support by ceding some power to them.

I’d laser holes into my TV due to how much I’d enjoy watching that.

(-) All hail Avatar Rock

Literally and metaphorically. Aang doesn’t sacrifice anything, gets everything, and the clever solution of going about getting said everything is handed to him on a silver platter, requiring no active participation on his part whatsoever.

He doesn’t work to unblock his chakras, spiritually or physically.

He only speaks to his past lives to get a pat on the back and a bow-tied solution he could mindlessly follow.

Energy-bending doesn’t require any sacrifice from him, leaves no lasting marks, and only serves for the narrative to praise him as the rare individual that’s unbendable and thus so very very special.

The most infuriating thing is, however, that Aang is clearly shown as being able to beat Ozai without either the Avatar state, or energy-bending.

And he chooses not to. From this moment on, Aang no longer fights to save the world. He fights to preserve his beliefs, going directly against the instructions of his past lives and effectively reneging on his duties as the Avatar.

Again.

It’s not like you can’t portray Aang’s faithfulness to his spiritual beliefs as the key to beating Ozai and saving the world. But that’s not what the show did. There is no link between Aang sparing Ozai and securing a better future, quite to the contrary—Ozai’s survival ends up being a massive problem for the continuation of Zuko’s rule, and consequently a threat to the world at large. His survival benefits Aang and no one else.

Aang’s spiritual purity and his status as a savior of the world are allowed to coexist only due to a deliberate stroke of a writer’s pen.

And I hate it.

Welp, nothing to do about it now except to bury myself up to my tits in fix-it fics I guess.

[drwcn]

i like to believe jgy really did love qin su & wanted his own family. as sect leader, having an heir is important & maybe he was hoping for the best for a "normal" kid. then opposition to his plans happened & oh look if someone kills my kid i can wipe out my opposition for revenge. & they're half sibs at most, they couldve had a "normal" kid...right? idk & things just kept going downhill for jgy when wwx came back .. so .. :( bye young(er) madame jin

JGY is the dumbest smart person, I’ve always thoughts so. He was so busy killing his enemies that that he forgot he needed friends, true friends who will stand with him and defend his character. These friends are made by exchanging heart for heart, exchanging trust for trust. But Meng Yao has been alone by himself pretty much all his life. He’s been ostracized, demeaned and stomped upon, sometimes literally.  He can’t be his true self, because for all his life, he’s been told his true self is dirty, is lesser, is something to be ashamed of. He doesn’t know how to trust, how to let down his guard, how to be honest and make honest friends. The one man he couldn’t help but love stabbed him in the chest in the end (well deserved, but nevertheless). If he knew how to for one second just be honest, he would’ve been able to win Nie Mingjue over and gained himself a valuable ally. 

Ultimately, it’s not Nie Huaisang who did him in. It’s his poisonous and deep-seeded desire to obtain his father’s approval and love. He eventually lost faith in his father and killed him, but by then it was already too late. 

There’s a saying in Chinese 当周公难 - it’s hard to be Zhou-gong. Zhou-gong, named Zhou Wen (1042 BC - 1035 BC) was a duke of the Zhou dynasty. He was the advisor of his brother the emperor and later the regent of his young nephew. Not only is Zhou Wen incredibly famous in Chinese history, but incredibly respected. This is what Jin Guangyao’s story should’ve been, but instead what we got was his disgrace and death. While Jin Guangyao committed many atrocities to socialy advance, to seek his revenge, to protect his secrets, as Chief Cultivator, he did a good job. This is a canonical truth. He did not embark on his path to power because he wanted to sink a rake into the world and plow it for all its treasures and worth. He genuinely wanted to be remembered by history as a Chief Cultivator who did well for the people, but he ruined it all for himself because he couldn’t let go of the desire for Jin Guangshan to approve of him. 

Sure, we can say that Meng Yao needed Jin Guangshan for social advancement, but after his father gave him the Jin name, what further use was there of Jin Guangshan? What honour, what favour, what recognition could Meng Yao not have gotten from Jin Zixuan instead? His brother, who is both less experienced as a leader and less socially adept as a person, would’ve been SO MUCH easier to manipulate. Look at Jin Zixuan, just look at him. He’s like 180cm of awkward. He’s not ready to be sect master of anything. He needed Jin Guangyao and would’ve valued him immeasurably. Not only that, he would’ve been more inclined (with the influence of Jiang Yanli) to bring Jin Guangyao closer to the inner family. Jin Guangshan wouldn’t even let Jin Guangyao hold Jin Ling for fuck sake. With his father alive, JGY would’ve forever just been the lackey, permanently on the precipice of being tossed aside and disowned. As his brother’s advisor, Jin Guangyao could’ve been the defacto ruler by ruling through Jin Zixuan. While he never felt secure at Lanling under Jin Guangshan, under Jin Zixuan, he would’ve been secure. 

But Jin Guangyao wasn’t logical when confronted with this issue. He wanted desperately to please Jin Guangshan. If he had put all his energy doing father’s dirty work into plotting his demise, not only would he have secured his own future, but he would’ve solved Yunmeng’s problem and done Gusu (Lan Wangji really) a huge favour. Let’s be real, Jin Guangshan was the driving force for most of the problems post war. Instead, Jin Guangyao spent all his time chasing an approval from a dead-beat father who was never going to give him what he wanted. 

Additionally, Jin Guangshan being in power not only kept his sons back, but kept Jiang Yanli back. Here’s what I mean. In the graphic book for CQL’s design and costume, it says that Lanling is structured much more like a dynastic court rather than a cultivation sect. In this case, the Madam of Lanling holds a lot of administrative and legal power, which rests in the hands of Jin Zixuan’s mother. Once Jin Guanshan dies and Jin Zixuan succeeds him, that power moves automatically from the hands of Madam Jin to Jiang Yanli, because now Jin Zixuan’s mother is the Dowager and Jiang Yanli is the new Madam Jin. (Of course there could be a power struggle there, but let’s say there isn’t, and given how much Madam Jin cared about Yanli, I don’t think there would be.) While the Dowager is respected and honoured, she doesn’t have as much real power. The true administrative power lies with the female head of family: the wife of the sect master. Jiang Yanli in this role would’ve given Jin Guangyaoall  the familial love and care that he needed. This would’ve been a huge improvement from Jin Guangshan and Madam Jin’s constant abuse. 

Jin Guangyao could’ve had a good life. He wouldn’t have had to marry Qin Su to advance himself. Even if that did happen, he would’ve had his family or at least his kind sister-in-law to turn to for help. A little sit down conversation, maybe a little tea to quietly resolve things, and an amicable separation for good measures. Nope, instead he had to dive head first into “daddy please love me”. Ugh. 

[cowperviolet]

A GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL TOURNAMENTS

Do you have a dynastic wedding to celebrate? A diplomatic visit to spice up? An axe to grind with a neighbour whose pageantry is eclipsing yours? Organize a tournament. It’s always the answer. A tournament of the greatest knights of the realm cannot go wrong.

Of course, it’s also a great and complex undertaking; but, thankfully, this step-by-step handbook should guide you through the process with only minimal pain and no injury

Obtain permission.

In England in France at least, organizing tourneys had become mostly a royal and ducal prerogative after 1340 – if you are not lucky enough to belong to one of those miniscule categories of the population, you would have to seek a special license. Obtaining it shouldn’t be a problem… unless, of course, there is a war on. In that case, you’d better check the latest royal proclamations – it’s more than possible that one of them contains a temporary ban on all tournaments while men of fighting age might have to risk their lives and limbs against an actual enemy. If this is true, it would be prudent of you to postpone your plans for a few months (or years, depending on how the war is going) – you wouldn’t want to content yourself with the kind of furtive affair that was the Le Hem tournament of 1278. It was hastily staged in direct violation of Louis IX ’s prohibition of tournaments because of the ongoing war, and as a result had to even dispense with the mêlée on the third day.

(If you think the prohibition overbearing and unfair, plenty of people would agree with you – and not just the kind of people who can afford swords and horses. The poet Sarrasin criticized the king in his Le Roman du Hem for bankrupting the heralds, armourers, saddlers and provisioners of France with his tournament ban).

2. Consider the time and place.

Most tourneys run from Monday to Sunday, with Friday being the rest day. You would need a spacious marketplace to divide into lists, too.

A lot depends on what kind of tournament you want to host. A general mêlée whose absence so disappointed the spectators in Le Hem would need more space than a contained joust; on the other hand, mêlée combat has been steadily losing its popularity as of late in favour of one-on-one jousts.

Of course, some people grumble that the old days when horsemen smashing into enemy in massed formations were the fixture of any tournament where the days when men were still men. But we are modern, fifteenth-century people, and we understand the importance of ensuring safety both for the participants and the spectators – hence the barriers down the centre of each list to prevent the knights from actually colliding with each other, and fenced enclosures to keep the audience strictly away from the danger. Which brings us to…

3. Decide on the rules.

The traditional rules of joust are the following: the knights are divided into two teams, those ‘within’ and those ‘without’ – or, in other words, the ‘defenders’ and the ‘attackers’. The space is, in turn, divided into three lists, each separated from the other by high barriers. The courses – the charges by two opposing knights – are going to be run down each, towards the spectacular splintering of lances. Each day, a prize, usually in the form of a small jewel or a golden chain, should be given to the best-performing knight and squire from each team.

You can, however, add or tweak a few details in order to make the sport safer for the participants – or more exhilarating for the audience. For example, you could take a page out of Maximillian I’s book and provide the knights with special spring-loaded shields that would flow apart if struck in the right place. You could also follow King Edward of England’s example and model your tournament after the béhourd he sponsored in Windsor in 1278: he specified, among other things, that the participants would have to wear cuir bouilli – a type of leather boiled until it was almost as hard as metal – and use wooden shields and whalebone swords.

If you scoff at the lightweight kind of tourneys popular these days, and especially if you care little for pageantry, then a different kind of joust might be more up your alley. The so-called passage of arms, or pas d’armes, is an undertaking to defend a certain place (usually a bridge or a gate) from all comers. It was inspired by various episodes from Arthurian romances, such as the Romance of Yvain by Chrétien de Troyes. In fiction, the knights undertook the defend a bridge, a gate, or a ford in single combat, and, if they were defeated, the winner took their place. Naturally, a real passage of arms plays out somewhat differently – for one thing, the defense only lasts a specified period of time (rarely longer than two weeks), and one defeat in a particular joust does not mean surrender. The most famous example of any knights attempting this kind of endeavor is probably the pas d’armes that Suero de Quinones organized at the Orbigo Bridge in northern Spain for two weeks until the St. James’ Day of 1434. They claimed a plan of breaking 300 lances in total – if they failed, the organizers promised, they would remain there for a further fortnight. They fulfilled that promise, and ended up withdrawing only on the 9th of August – but even with that extra time, they’ve only managed to break 178 lances in total. It’s no mean result, of course – plenty of minor conventional tourneys end in mighty disappointment for the spectators with not a single lance ending up broken at all.

It must be said that, although a passage of arms is a grandiose undertaking, jousting proper usually only takes a couple of hours a day there – in other words, the spectators are likely to be disappointed anyway. Your fellow knights, however, are going to be delighted by the concept – if, of course, they are true connoisseurs of tourneys just like you.

4. Think of the logistics.

The matter might begin with the rules of fighting itself, but it doesn’t end there. If you are in a position to organize a tournament out of your own purse in the first place, you must be the master of the lands where it’s going to be held, so make sure your subjects don’t suffer as a result of the soaring prices that usually accompany such events, not to mention the influx of professional warriors. Fix the prices firmly for the duration of the tournament, especially the prices on bread, fish, and meat; stipulate that no spectators or unarmed persons are to mix with the participants; make sure each gate of the city is manned by about twelve armed men, and station at least five hundred guards around the setting of the tournament itself.

5. Send out invitations.

Sending letters of invite seems to be the most logical course – however, it is also the most excruciating one, given the number of noblemen of fighting age who would be eligible for participation. In your situation, it would be better to contact the organizer of the tourney closest to yours and ask him to have your upcoming event announced there.

You would also do well to contact the tournament societies in your region – if you live in Germany, it’s going to be particularly easy: the whole concept, after all, originated in Bavaria. Tournament societies are essentially permanent tournament teams from different regions. Instead of laboriously summoning individual knights, one could simply issue a challenge from one society to another. Moreover, some societies’ rules even specify that the members have to meet annually at a tournament -it might as well be yours!

6. Think of the theme.

Of course, you don’t have to have a theme – you might want your tournament to simply be a bit of rough, honest fun it used to be in William Marshall’s days. We don’t live in William Marshall’s days anymore, though, and I suspect you wouldn’t want to be outdone by your neighbours.

The most go-to theme are Arthurian legends. It’s the kind of oldie-but-goldie you cannot go wrong with. The fashion was arguably started by Edward I of England, who set out a round table and acted out a number of Arthurian romances with the other noblemen at the feast after the tournament in honour of his daughter’s wedding. That was a far cry from the spectacular Arthurian festival arranged across the Channel by the lords Longueval and Bazentin in Picardy: they had the tournament presided over by ‘Queen Guinevere’, and stipulated that all the attendant knights had to bring a damsel with them. Another member of the theatricals was named as Chevalier au Lyon, who supposedly ‘rescued’ the ladies in ‘Guinevere’s retinue, and even had a real lion with him.

If this is all a bit too out there for you (or, the other way around, too pedestrian – everyone does the Round Table these days!), you could organize the pageantry of the tournament around your heroic ancestor or your sigil – possibly both. For example, the joust that Adolf of Cleves staged in Lille had been inspired by the story of the Cleves’ progenitor, a knight who was miraculously led along the Rhine by a swan and ended up marrying the local princess. During the joust, the ‘Knight of the Swan’ was to take on all challengers.

The procession, to quote the words of a contemporary, included

‘…drummers; and after them a pursuivant of arms dressed in a coat of arms full of swans; after him came a large swan, marvellously and skilfully made, with a crown of gold around its neck, from which hung a shield of the full arms of Cleves; and from this crown hung a golden chain on which, from one end, there hung the shield of the knight; and this swan was flanked by two very well made centaurs who had bows and arrows in their hands, and made as though to shoot at anyone who tried to approach the swan’.

7. Plan the banquet.

Nothing can sour the impression of a great tourney as a meagre banquet afterwards. The need for a generous display of food is self-explanatory – roebucks, suckling pigs, silvered eels, gilded bread, almond soup, kid goats, and the like – however, this is sadly not enough. You also have to think about the entremets.

What are the entremets? To put it simply, everything that is a part of the banquet, but is not edible. I’m not simply talking about straightforward entertainments like music, theatre pieces, or juggling. Entremets can also be elaborate installations for your guests to admire, such as a mini-carrack, exquisitely executed up to the last rope and laden with goods, or a mechanical forest full of strange, if thankfully unmoving, beasts. Even vessels sometimes count – you could have the sweets be contained in little chariots decorated with gold and azure. If you prefer to walk on the wild side, take a page out of Taillevent’s book (quite literally – it’s called Viandier) and construct a fake lion equipped to spout flame: ���make it with a brass-lined mouth and a thin brass tongue, and with paper teeth glued in the mouth; and put camphor and a little cotton in the mouth and, when it is about to be served before the lords, set fire to this’.

Just don’t do what they did for the Feast of the Pheasant when they’ve made a statue of a naked woman in a large hat who spouted sweetened wine from her breasts for the duration of the dinner. Please.

Sources:

Normore, Christina. A Feast for the Eyes.

Andrew Brown and Graeme Small, Court and Civic Society in the Burgundian Low Countries c. 1420–1530.

Kelcey Wilson-Lee, Daughters of Chivalry: The Forgotten Children of Edward I.

[agoddamn]

The hell race is this shark guy? His vertically-aligned feet-flippers are a nice touch, though

Very wise and intelligent to send Anakin here and none of the actual aquatic Jedi

It’s...something that Star Wars’s fondness for mythic/legendary systems of rule (princesses and such) ends up accidentally making the villains look most sensible. Man’s right, a thirteen-year-old shouldn’t be a ruler! Dynastic rule is inherently incompatible with democracy. But this is What Star Wars Does, so here we are I suppose

This guy was nice for two seconds so he’s obviously a traitor

...fish boobs

Have we laughed about “Mon Calamari” enough? Because it’s pretty bad, but I don’t hear people drag it much

HOW ABOUT THE GUY WHO’S MOST QUALIFIED GIVES THE BATTLE COMMANDS???

Everyone’s dropping ass-first into the water, but for all I know about aquatic warfare that might indeed somehow be the most tactical choice

Was it too hard to animate sabers bubbling underwater? Shame

“Come to the front lines, untrained thirteen-year-old” sure, whatever

Is the tube supposed to be like a highway where the water flowing in it is faster? Because if it is, that sharkman is only putting himself in danger by trying to bust in from the outside (warning: crustacean death)

A BIG

STUPID

JELLYFISH

So what do these things even...do, just slowly drift towards the enemy and maybe zap them once they get in kissing distance?

...Gungans would be kinda sexy if not for the association of Jar-Jar and questionable linguistic choices

I have to ask how, in a setting with droids, it could ever be useful to take care of a living slave population. With TPM, I thought it was just that Tatooine was such a shithole it had no proper infrastructure to support mass droid use, but this is the droid faction. What need could they possible have for living slaves that need to eat and sleep and bathe and shit?

I think this is the first time we’ve seen non-officer clones taken prisoner en masse, though since they’re all specialized aquatic troopers they might all be ARCs/officers (the council did mention that they didn't just have another aquatic unit ready to go)

Cool theme remix

Oh my god, those were meaty fucking explosions

Well, this kid got real hardcore real fast

>SEVERED FUCKING HEAD FLOATS BY

This was still a PG rating?!

[mc-critical]

I remember not too long ago, I had read an analysis on Kösem and Ahmed’s relationship, namely its development and whether or not it was truly healthy. I remember the sudden development of Kösem’s feelings for Ahmed were ascribed to stockholm syndrome, which as you dissect it further, even later in the series after Ahmed has passed away, makes total sense. However it made me wonder, why stop at Kösem/Ahmed? Truthfully, I think stockholm syndrome, trauma response and survival instinct were the primary factors in all of the sultanas “love” or attachment to the sultans. Hürrem, Mahidevran, Aysë, Halime, Handan..all of them. Hürrem had initially thought her fiance was murdered when she came to the palace, and within what looked like a couple of months if even, she was shown to be totally head over heels for Suleyman. No one can simply discard their former love interest so quickly unless trauma was a catalyst..and even when Leo came back to the palace that whole time period where he was in such a close proximity to her visibly caused Hürrem so much pain mentally and emotionally. Or with Handan and Kösem going on to fall in love after their sultans had died..it makes me think of when Handan was confessing her love to Dervish and called being a member of the royal family “her prison.” None of these women were truly in love with their sultans, nor do I blame them for it. Love is what develops when there’s no consequences, no strings attached, which is entirely untrue in the harem’s enviornment. Even with Mahidevran’s arc way back when Hürrem was first introduced and she started to feel like she was losing Suleyman. It looked to me Mahidevran ultimately feared lonliness rather than losing Suleyman himself. Harem rules wouldn’t permit her to fall in love with someone else if Suleyman lost interest in her. He was pretty much her only confidant and the only person she had been intimate with and likely from a very young age, unhealthy attachment is bound to develop due to those curcumstances. We all feel so sorry for royal borne sultanas when they’re forced to marry men they don’t love..but this courtesy is seldom extended to their mothers. It’s all very sad when I think about it. How do you feel about this perspective?

(~Fun fact: I got yours and the last ask in the same day and they are both somehow related to Kösem and Ahmet!!~)

Anyway, I have also read that analysis and it's really nuanced and awesome, Joanna always does such an amazing job with her blog and these posts! <3 It gives an amazing perspective to the nature of Kösem and Ahmet and makes us think hard on whether there are more relationship cases in the franchise where Stockholm Syndrome can be applied and how many women there are in the harem that aren't so in love with their sultans.

I also fully believe that, just like motherhood, love in the harem can't not be toxic in a way, because the environment itself won't ever let healthy dynamics happen, thanks to its very roots. And while mothers of children still have the small chance to forge some kind of a relationship with genuine affection despite of the toxicity, we have a totally different situation with the sultans who are basically on the top of the system that brought them in this mess in the first place. It's not easy to let go of the people you loved and it's even harder to get to truly love a person you not only don't know at all, but one you know you're supposed to at least try to win over by sheer force.

Survival instinct plays a lot into this, because sooner or later you see that you don't have a choice. You do what you have to do or else you'll either rot in this palace with everyone always bossing you around or be done for. Something I see some viewers forget is the way Hürrem was ultimately "convinced" to try her luck out with Süleiman. She wanted to get out of this place and let it burn in hell until Nigar told her what it took to win the game. Keep in mind that she hadn't met Süleiman yet back then and that faint was merely an act she pulled to gain his attention and she gained some kind of an affection for him only after some time had passed. This sheer pragmatism could've turned into something more eventually, but the beggining was precisely this survival instinct that was kept intact throughout the entire relationship and the birth and living of Hürrem's children. I think she had let go of Leo by the time when she met him again, but that letting go pained her so much, as seen by all her breakdowns when she saw him and lost him completely. It's something she knew she had to do; notice how she kept telling him to leave for "his own good" and for "the good of both of them". There is this looming, prevailing fear that if they had escaped, the consequences would be severe and Hürrem had already planted roots in the dynasty: as if she gained attachment after attachment she felt the need to protect. She's now responsible for these children and can't leave them behind for her own possible desires to get out of the system. Ibrahim did threaten the children in front of Leo and Hürrem in the S01 finale and that's a big reason why she decided it would be for the best to lose him in this particular situation, no matter how much it hurt afterwards. Hürrem already had a set goal to fulfill in the dynasty and letting go of Leo became the only plausible option for her thematically and narratively. Everything these women do in the harem they do is to survive, adapting to their circumstances and forging some kind of relationships with their sultans is the peak of it. A healthy dynastic is far from one where you have to be opportunistic at every turn. Even the favored women have to be as careful as ever, because a mistake can cost everything. They have to make sure they always have his approval and be in his good graces, behaving like he wants them to behave, not the way they actually are. The goal they have set for themselves in the harem is tightly linked with their love for the sultan. He isn't only love, he's also power, prestige and reassuring. The Sultanate of Women are probably even the most affected by this, because they are the ones who want to break the boundaries of power and by doing that they have to put the leg work to make him happy and pleased. These relationships need so much work and decisiveness for their flourishment, with the women having to be mindful of the sultan's moods and unpredictable nature. (especially when you have an unpredictable, very short tempered sultan like Murat!)

But attachment is still attachment and that's where Stockholm syndrome comes from. They do their best to win him over, but with doing that for such a long time, they learn to feel something for him. There is so much toxicity in the dynamic, but they get used to it and normalize it in their heads. The concept of the harem itself succeeds to make their life revolve around it and it's not something they question anymore. I absolutely agree that it's not limited to only Kösem and Ahmet - everyone is somehow subjected to it, no exceptions. The relationships each woman of the franchise has with the sultan certainly differ from one another, depending on the different personalities and goals, but its unhealthy core remains the same: it's still a toxic, dependant relationship with a massive power imbalance and will always remain so in these castle walls and rules. The big attachment makes it even scarier for one to discover that they might be losing everything, that's why there is such a resistence from Mahidevran, Hürrem, Kösem, Ayşe, Farya etc. when the sultan accepts or outrightly begins to favor other women and I always roll my eyes when these women get accused of "behaving like that while knowing the rules of the harem" without it being understood from a narrative standpoint - even though they know the rules, it still hurts, because the attachment is ultimately more self-centered than anything: they want the sultan to be all theirs, to have him all for themselves, perhaps for a validation of their efforts to forge and preserve their relationships. When they lose favor, everything seems to be crumbling and falling apart and that is so difficult to accept, you can't face helplessness like that, you can't face vulnerability like that and I guess for that it took Mahidevran so long to get over Süleiman. As you said, she got destructively attached to the person that seemigly gave her so much for years. (she herself even said that she's like a little kid in front of him in the second episode) And her suddenly not being regarded in the same way by someone she thought was her family (I still adore that thematic note of her character and perhaps it's the reason why we didn't get any backstory from her.) was catastrophic to her emotional stability and it took her 46 (55, if we begin from her direct confession) episodes to accept that she has lost and even then she was still trying to achieve vengeance at the very least, by thinking of her rule of the harem as a battle she fought with Hürrem, a last helpless try to prevail over her. (E63: "I congratulate you, Hürrem, you won.") That's also why Hürrem almost killed herself when Firuze seemed to have taken away her Thursdays, without having any regard for the children. It's like a chain, of sorts, that women are stuck in, fighting to the end to be the ones next to him, to the point of wanting to end their own lives if they lose. If they lose, that's the end. If they lose the favoritism or the sultan himself dies, leaving them to rest in the hands of the enemy, that's the end.

That's why Mahidevran and Ayşe getting over Süleiman and Murat respectively and realizing that it was more or less an unhealthy dynamic is so important, because these character arcs help spread awareness of the toxicity of this grown attachment to the sultan and the struggle it takes for them to take account of said toxicity, because of their attachments. Ayşe had a rough path accepting that Murat was the way he is, trying almost until the end to make things right with him, both missing in the process and slowly uncovering his unpredictability. While this realization rendered her to do the inevitable in killing herself along with the kids, her letter to Murat indeed felt so eye opening in this regard, putting this whole deal into perspective. Mahidevran, conversely, also found out his true nature and detached herself from it, daring to openly call out a root of the attachment (E139: "He decides the fates of all of us.") and put the free choice of everyone into light and question. (E139: "God, apart from reason, gave people free will.") It's rare for someone to gain such awareness of the system and that's a valuable quality to have, but in a future where Mahidevran and Ayşe aren't as grossly mistreated, would all this be possible to happen? No, I don't think so. And even from the ones that aren't favourites who are more likely to find this out, there are still people out there that probably would stay trapped in the attachment forever. And favourites would be the least likely to figure stuff out, judging by the series' themes. (Hürrem, E134: "I am the soul of all the women in the world and my existence is hidden in the love of the conqueror of my heart." - this assertion is honestly self-explanatory.)

[Handan's arc also extends on the traumatic response one gives the system and I think this aspect applies to her the most. She's a person with no real attachments that is so traumatized by fighting, she didn't even expect the possibility to win over players like Halime and Safiye. She's trying to adapt to her new role as Valide, give "cruel" advice to Ahmet in order to ensure it and make impulsive decisions, dictated by the fear it would all come back to square 1 again, but when she met Derviş, it turned out that nothing about the system made her fit. Hence, she "adapts out" from it by finding true love and killing herself for that love, leaving everything behind.]

So no matter how much these women come to idealize it, no matter how much they begin to think it is actually love or a "fairytale", there still are so many signs that it's not quite like that and that prevent it from being that. That truly includes everyone in the harem, it can't be denied.

[mistakenvilliany]

Episode 7

This and episode 6 are a the first of several times where I just went on a binge in my first watch (probably watched like 8 in a row?). BUT you kinda have to them together, and I was already so invested that I said "what is time anyway?" Anyway, details below! These get long, and they only promise to get longer, just remember, I did warn you.

• Lan Yi's been in Cold Pond Cave long enough that her girlfriend raised kids, who've had kids. She's so pleased but also sad. She's probably done the "what is time" thing too. I hope those bunnies have been half as entertaining as this show

• And she somehow knows of Baoshan Sanren's seclusion? But didn't seek her out for shame? She's trapped in the cave, this makes total sense. No, no it doesn't. I have questions! How is this done? Who is capable? It's one freaking line, and I'm already wondering on the implications

• Lan Yi: "nope, didn't bring you here, I guess someone else is fucking around with the other Yin Iron pieces, sorry" Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian (teenagers): "We will fix this! We are completely qualified!"

• Here's where you can really tell that this plot point got shoehorned in, the Yin Iron is the "spirit of heaven and earth, which can't be eradicated" and yet later after the defeat of Wen Rohan, those pieces are suddenly gone. "Nothing to see here folks! We destroyed/suppressed them more successfully than our ancestors even though we know less about them!"

• I love that we hear Wei Wuxian shouting before he and Lan Wangji fall through a cliff face. What was WWX doing that made LWJ mad this time? Winding that ribbon closer? That's my guess anyway.

• "We've been gone how long?!? Oh what a long story to tell, it would be so boring! Of course, here are some minor distracting details - it was cold! Well! Let's all head back shall we?" I feel like everyone should know that Wei Wuxian is lying here, or at least leaving something out. Wen Qing gets that something is missing, but the person that should absolutely know better, Jiang Cheng, just decides - brother re-aquired, return to sister.

• I have to laugh so hard at this - we're in a private lesson essentially that bad things are happening because of this piece of "universe" and our probable enemy has one too. WWX response is that "we use that one to find all the others!" And LWJ thinks that it's a GOOD IDEA! These are just over eager children.

• Jiang Cheng is such a petulant little brother! "Now you're close with Lan Wangji, stay here I don't care" I'm not really sure how close they actually are in age, but Jiang Cheng really knows how to be the baby. As a certified youngest sibling myself I can attest that it is his God given right to be dramatic.

• My baby! Don't worry, wwx isn't rejecting you, he just doesn't think he could follow all the rules, and he really really can't. It will be okay.

• Xue Yang is so happy to get permission to murder people. I get it, I too would like to smite my enemies. My only concern is - dude why are you waiting for the okay to do so? He doesn't actually do what Wen Rohan wants him to anyway, so ?? Kid's got issues.

• Oh Wen Chao, what to do with you? Wen Rohan who is the current Cheif Cultivator, and currently acquiring more power through dubious means of Yin Iron, has a separate chamber to put you in rather than face you to speak to you, and your response is "I'll do what I want, there will be no consequences to that" such arrogance, I am so happy you die.

• WWX so happy: "you smiled" LWJ's immediate reaction (internally): uh oh, I smiled and he he saw! Now I must kill him it's the only reasonable response

• I feel bad for Nie Huaisang's lantern getting burned, they are finally doing something that he's good at and he doesn't get to show it off. Also - "it cost so much, you'll never be able to replace it" is amazing! Jiang clan obviously has money, but WWX must always be running out.

• Then Nie Huaisang's wish is to finally pass, please please let me pass! Such a slacker wish. Kid, I love you, but just study.

• Upon hearing the succinct wish of Wei Wuxian's only ambitions in life, Lan Wangji can't help it - falls in love even more. And his immediate reaction is of course "and I will do this Yin Iron quest by myself to see that WWX has a world where he can live his dreams"

• The fight between Jin Zixuan and Wei Wuxian must have gone on for awhile and obviously Jin Zixuan got the worse end of it, my baby is a powerful cultivator and probably also fights a bit dirty. I can't say that I blame him for it, with the nature of dynastic marriages it had to be a huge insult to the Jiangs that Jin Zixuan publicly declared he didn't want to marry (my beloved treasure) Jiang Yanli.

• My baby was really initiating conversation!! I'm so proud of you! Okay, so Wei Wuxian isn't actually crying or anything, but! No baby! Don't storm off! Shoot.

• And we learn for 100% positive that the only way that Wei Wuxian knows how to interact with things he finds cute is to poke at it. LWJ could have learned something if he just stuck around. (And oh lord! I have to leave the comments of on his knees alone, there's way too much there)

• Jin Guangshan walks in - yuck

• Jiang Fengmian - "Wei Wuxian is at fault, so I take responsibility" Jin Guangshan - "no, no, my son is at fault, so I take responsibility" Lan Qiren - "Don't worry I have already punished them appropriately"

• Again we have a dynastic marriage problem, Jiang Fengmian isn't really a great politician here, he doesn't want his daughter with someone who won't respect here but his response should have been something else to tie the clans closer together, not as good as marriage, but really the assurance of "how could it?" is not reassuring

• I am not exactly clear on what upsets Jiang Cheng. His sister will be sad? The political situation is not good for them? His mother will be angry? Running to spill to WWX is a certified little sibling move. And then Wei Wuxian runs off to check on Jiang Yanli, and finds her basically setting down all her hopes and dreams for the life she was going to have.

• Lans meeting with Jiang Fengmian: Don't mind us! Just a very visible silencing ward, nothing is the matter, don't pay any attention. We're definitely not discussing taboo Yin Iron topics or speculating on the Wen involvement, nope just having tea.

• LQR just gets finished telling Jiang Fengmian to be stricter with WWX, and then he just shakes his head at WWX's and JC's antics later. He barely even tries to stop them

• I love how it is severely implied that Wei Wuxian went and saved the rabbits and now doesn't know what to do. It's the establishment of a pattern for my baby. And it's only then that he figures out that LWJ is leaving him behind! Baby, honey - you just gave him a head start.

[orsuliya]

Any headcanon on miracle baby growing up in Ningshuo ?

Would Miracle Baby really grow up in Ningshuo, that is the question. I have some serious doubts about whether such a solution would be actually feasible.

See, dictating national policy - which Xiao seems to have no qualms about once Miracle Baby is successfully enthroned - is one thing. Absconding with one's eminently controllable sovereign, one who is also temptingly easy to mold for any future purposes, well, that's something entirely different.

Not that anybody could actually stop Xiao Qi, should he wish to present Awu with an additional baby, but think about how it would look! Being Regent while Miracle Baby resides at court is more or less fine, if only because high visibility enforces some kind of accountability. For example, it would be rather hard to kill the kid and substitute an impostor without anybody noticing while in the very heart of the Imperial Palace. In Ningshuo, on the other hand... Not that drama!Xiao Qi would ever, even as book!Xiao Qi totally would have done just that or worse.

Still, any concern over Miracle Baby's whereabouts wouldn't be about his safety, for all that the ministers might very well claim otherwise. Distribution of power, that's what matters. And Prince Yuzhang is one problematic cookie. Tough, too. General Ningshuo was dangerous enough on his own, but still manageable. Well, not really, not unless one can find an envoy who is totally immune to explosions, but still, his power came - at least in theory - from his officer's patent and official posting, also nominally given out by the Emperor. Yuzhang-wang, a vassal king whose province just got newly resettled with culturally diverse people who would feel little loyalty to the throne and much gratitude towards their benefactor, and whose province, quite incidentally, should yield great profits once furnished with actual manpower? Grasslands, baby, it all comes back to grasslands. Well, such Prince would be impossible to dislodge. Both from his centre of power - that big bad army didn't exactly disappear in the meantime - and from the worst nightmares of Cheng nobles. Let him take our Emperor?! What an outrageous power grab! Why not move the capital to Ningshuo, while he's at it?

Which means that taking Miracle Baby away from court and raising it in Ningshuo is out of question, if one wishes to avoid fomenting further discontent and rebellion. Besides, I think that they might actually need a figurehead down there in the capital, if only to preside over state ceremonies and the like, especially with no other dynastic male anywhere near the throne. There absolutely are other dynastic males - which is part of the problem - but I don't think letting one of them take over ceremonial duties is a good idea, unless they could be trusted not to get over-ambitious, that is. By the way, we've been robbed - going by the cast list provided by MDL there was at least one provincial prince shown on-screen during those twelve mythical episodes! A somewhat aesthetically-pleasing one, no less! Don't know about you all, but my outrage knows no bounds.

Anyway, back to Miracle Baby. What this whole baby-raising conundrum needs is some delicious plausible deniability. So... I guess they could do a timeshare? No, really. Besides, I don't think the Yuzhangs will stay buried in their province forever, even if it takes them a few years to get over all their capital-induced trauma. So let's say that Miracle Baby, our Lord and Saviour, officially resides in the Imperial Palace under the watchful eye of Prime Minister Turnip, his wise and gracious lady wife and whatever council of ministers they manage to cobble together. And yet every other year he can be found in Ningshuo. What might he be doing there, you might ask. Well, he’s visiting his most faithful vassal, of course! And if on his way there and back again his armed escort (clad in Ningshuo black) rattles the nerves of some particularly delicate local magnates, that’s no skin off anyone’s nose. Once Miracle Baby grows up some, this trip might turn into something not unlike an imperial progress.

And in Ningshuo… In Ningshuo Jing’er can finally breathe, free of his gilded cage. Why, he has actual playmates there, ones not too intimidated by his imperial status; while Awu’s horde of children is probably conscious of various forms and manners, Xiao Qi raised no kneelers. There are still lessons, of course, but they’re much more fun that whatever Jing’er’s Imperial Tutor (Wen Zongshen?) comes up with.

Besides, getting your sword-work corrected by Prince Yuzhang himself is very different than hearing – or not hearing – accolades from your usual teacher, even if the latter is also a Ningshuo soldier. There are horseback races to the river and strange, unfamiliar games that no noble child in the capital seems to know. But that is not the most important thing. No, what’s most important is that in Ningshuo, if you ever feel tired, sad or just need a hug, you can always hide in Mama Awu’s arms. Not that Mama Caiwei doesn’t give great hugs, she totally does! But only when there aren’t any important people around and never, ever while you are stuffed into official robes of office. Those, by the way, are really itchy. Mama Awu doesn’t care about all that; why, you still remember the first time she came to the capital. You were five at the time and there was an official banquet to get through, something about greeting foreign envoys, you think. Sure, you were always sent to bed before too long, but sitting on the throne with your legs dangling high above the ground really isn’t that comfortable. Also, once the part with all that pretty dancing is over, official banquets tend to get really boring. So Mama Awu came up the dais, asked Uncle Wang if you could leave already and when he replied it was not the time yet, she picked you up and sat on the throne herself with you in her lap. Uncle Wang sputtered and got really, really red in the face, as did some other ministers, but before they could do anything your Uncle Yuzhang said something - just a few words - and all those adults simmered down without further protest.

Also, Hu Yao (who is very much not dead) is the most beloved adult in Ningshuo, even if she only ever whispers due to an old injury. She might not actually know what to do with all those starry-eyed children that follow her everywhere, but the children care not a whit!

[anonwriter27]

Trust in Me Ch2

Y/N didn’t really understand the hype surrounding the arrival of the Gods.  She had been there the day the avengers had received a letter from Asgard, informing them of Loki’s mind control at the hands of Thanos. Apparently with his brother’s trust and a never-ending interrogation, Loki finally cracked and revealed what happened the day he fell from the Bifrost.  

At the time, everyone seemed to accept the letter as truth (Clint less so) and went about their business.

 Apparently seeing Loki in person had provoked another reaction entirely. Everyone seemed stiff, their backs straight and a scowl etched on their faces. Y/N didn’t like the tension, so she hung back, only peaking slightly from behind the doorway.

 Y/N had seen Thor before and found him to be pleasant enough, though he was slightly wary of her. Y/N’s family on her father’s side had a history dating back to the Vikings and sadly their brutality hadn’t softened in time. Thor didn’t particularly care for them; so when he saw the signature Tatum look in Y/N’s appearance, he was put slightly on edge.

 Over the years he had grown a little more accustomed to her presence, but Y/N did not wish to push on his discomfort and kept a respectable distance from the thunder God.

 Thor walked into the living space, heavy boots stomping against the hard wood floors and Tony’s yells of “I don’t think so,” bouncing off the walls. Thor was always a magnificent presence when he entered the room, he wasn’t imposing, just striking; so striking that, had there not been so much commotion about it, one might miss the shadow of another figure lurking behind the mighty God.

   The team were waiting for one of his snide remarks, a spiteful comment or cruel jibe. But Loki just stood there, allowing his brother to speak on his behalf in that booming, bellowing voice.

 Loki hated being spoken for, but it was necessary. With Odin’s demand for him to serve time on Midgard, Loki could not risk messing up the Allfather’s dynastic plan, lest he be sent to the Jotunheim.

 “I know of your grievances with my brother dear friends, but this is a new beginning for Loki. Allow your righteousness and goodness to spread forth onto him.” Thor proclaimed, lifting his fist in the air for dramatic effect.

Loki couldn’t stop his eyes from rolling at his brother’s pathetic attempts to rally the avengers to their side. He looked at each member of the heroic team, most of which were familiar faces. There were some new ones though that looked less angry but more apprehensive to see him.

 He noted the witch first, he could sense her juvenile attempt to tap into his mind. ‘That’s going to get annoying’ he thought.

 An odd-looking man with an unmistakable infinity stone in his head. ‘That could be worth investigating,’ Loki decided.

 The two men surrounding the soldier held the same posture as their captain. Loki assumed them to be soldiers too.

 Then there was the child. Although Asgard had no qualms with sending young boys off to battle he had thought it to be illegal on Midgard. Oddly though Loki found he didn’t mind this new recruit too much, he was the only one smiling directly at Loki.

 “So you want us to take him in?” Nat asked, bringing Loki back to the conversation at hand.

 “No.” Tony and Clint firmly stated at the same time as Thor grinned and yelled “Yes!”

 “Tony, we don’t have much of a say in this.” Pepper said, reading carefully through the letter sent from Odin.

 “Pepper’s right, besides this has already been signed by government officials.” Bruce agreed, taking off his glasses, “It’s a done deal.”

 “It’s not a done deal, I am undoing this deal, the deal is undone!” Tony was losing ground and he knew it.

 “But Mr. Loki was mind controlled Mr. Stark, maybe we can get to know him better.” The child said with pleading dark brown eyes.

 Loki decided he liked the young avenger, and that he liked being called Mr. Loki.

 After much deliberation and numerous bottles of scotch, the avengers begrudgingly agreed to Thor’s request and Odin’s demand. Thor then took it upon himself to re-introduce Loki to his friends. Many of the older members of the group sat in their chairs, sipping their dinks, silently contemplating the events of the evening.

 Clint had left as soon as Loki had walked further into the room. Those who had known Loki from New York nodded their heads in acknowledgment of his presence, but that was by no means an indication that they were accepting of his presence.

 “…and this is the spiderling!” Thor bellowed.

 Loki quirked an eyebrow at his brother, confused by the name.

 “It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Loki! I’m Peter… or spiderman. But you can’t tell anyone… I mean everyone hear knows…I’m not saying you’re a gossip, it’s just a secret…is all…” Peter rambled, clearly dumbstruck in the presence of Gods.

 Loki merely smirked, “A pleasure.” Was all he said, but it was enough to put Peter at ease.

 Loki didn’t mind his brother’s insistence on these introductions, what bothered him was how comfortable Thor was amongst this band of heroes. He was so relaxed and composed, like he belonged. Loki knew he could never feel that way here, nor would he ever want to, but it would be so much easier if he did.

 As they made their way through the room, Loki noticed his brother’s demeanour change. Thor seemed a bit more restrained, less boisterous, and the source of this change appeared to be peaking behind the door.

 Loki didn’t recognise this avenger either. A pretty little thing, but apparently shy; she all but flinched when Thor looked her way.

 Thor cleared his throat, “Ah lady Y/N, this is my brother Loki.”

 The young girl made her way over to the brothers followed closely by Natasha who, upon seeing the interaction, thought Y/N might feel more comfortable with her there.

 “Hello.” She said meekly.

 She could barely look him in the eye. Since Loki had not recognised her signature Tatum looks, he thought she may be afraid of him; but something told Loki that was not the case.

    Y/N knew she was being rude, but her anxiety with introductions was all consuming, and with Thor’s unease around her, Y/N assumed Loki would be equally unimpressed.

 The God of mischief opened his mouth to speak but was swiftly interrupted.

 “That’s close enough reindeer games.” Tony said, walking quickly over to the group.

 “My brother means her no harm Stark.” Thor assured.

 “Problem?” Loki sneered.

 Tony squared his shoulders, “Problem no. Pain in my ass, sure…excruciating migraine that will only by numbed by the sweet nectar I like to call whisky…”

 “Tony, please.” Pepper spoke, with extra emphasis on the please.

 “This is gonna be fun to live with.” Nat muttered into her drink earning a chuckle from Bruce.

 “I have been here less than ten minutes Stark, what grievances could you have possibly procured against me so soon?” Loki spoke with venom.

 Before Tony could respond, Thor stepped in.

 “Y/N here is Tony’s niece, he is within his rights to be protective, brother.”

That made Loki pause, his withering stare directed at Tony softened as it moved towards Y/N. His piercing gaze seemed to knock the air out of her lungs.

 No one had really looked at Y/N this intently. Normally people avoided looking at her at all costs, no one had ever tried to read her before.

 His attention confused her, but it sparked a curiosity of her own.

   ‘Stark’s niece, how intriguing.’ Loki thought.

 He looked at her in that moment, noting no significant family resemblance between the two. There was a clear fondness by the way in which the young woman relaxed in her uncle’s company, but nothing notably similar.

 What a strange creature she seemed, to be amongst a band of heroes and be so scared.

 Loki gave her a dazzling smile, lifted her hand to his lips, and after a quick kiss declared, “What a pleasure this is.”

 It was the last thing he said before a blast of energy knocked him through the wall.

[aboveallarescuer]

Daenerys Targaryen in A Storm of Swords vs Game of Thrones - Episode 3.1: Valar Dohaeris

In this series of posts, I intend to analyze precisely how the show writers downplayed or erased several key aspects of Daenerys Targaryen’s characterization, even when they had the books to help them write her as the compelling, intelligent, compassionate, frugal, open-minded and self-critical character that GRRM created.

I want to make it clear that these posts are not primarily meant to offer a better alternative to what the show writers gave us. I understand that they had many constraints (e.g. other storylines to handle, a limited amount of time to write the scripts, budget, actors who may have asked for a certain number of lines, etc) working against them. However, considering how disrespectful the show’s ending was to Daenerys Targaryen and how the book material that they left out makes it even more ludicrous to think that she will also become a villain in A Song of Ice and Fire, I believe that these reviews are more than warranted. They are meant to dissect everything about Dany’s characterization that was lost in translation, with a lot of book evidence to corroborate my statements.

Since these reviews will dissect scene by scene, I recommend taking a look at this post because I will use its sequence to order Dany’s scenes.

This post is relevant in case you want to know which chapters were adapted in which GoT episodes (however, I didn’t make the list myself, all the information comes from the GoT Wiki, so I can’t guarantee that it’s 100% reliable).

In general, I will call the Dany from the books “Dany” and the Dany from the TV series “show!Dany”.

Scene 1

Summary: show!Dany and show!Jorah are on a ship. The two discuss a) the dragons' growth, b) whether it's worth being complicit in the slave trade or not and c) the Dothraki's seasickness.

We begin the episode with this conversation about the dragons:

JORAH: They're growing fast.

DAENERYS: Not fast enough. I can't wait that long. I need an army.

Is it true that Dany needs the dragons to conquer Westeros and wishes they were bigger than they are at this point in the books? It is:

Another year, or perhaps two, and he may be large enough to ride. Then I shall have no need of ships to cross the great salt sea.

But that time was not yet come. Rhaegal and Viserion were the size of small dogs, Drogon only a little larger, and any dog would have outweighed them; they were all wings and neck and tail, lighter than they looked. And so Daenerys Targaryen must rely on wood and wind and canvas to bear her home. (ASOS Daenerys I)

However, that's not all there is to their relationship. Dany loves them as she would love her own human children:

They are my children, she told herself, and if the maegi spoke truly, they are the only children I am ever like to have. (ASOS Daenerys I)

Because she loves them like a mother would, she pays attention to how they grow and develop and act like a mother would:

Dragons always preferred to attack from above, Dany had learned. Should either get between the other and the sun, he would fold his wings and dive screaming, and they would tumble from the sky locked together in a tangled scaly ball, jaws snapping and tails lashing. The first time they had done it, she feared that they meant to kill each other, but it was only sport. No sooner would they splash into the sea than they would break apart and rise again, shrieking and hissing, the salt water steaming off them as their wings clawed at the air. (ASOS Daenerys I)

That level of care and attention (and her own cleverness in the choice of the word "dracarys") is what allows her to figure out how to order them to breathe fire on her own:

She took a chunk of salt pork out of the bowl in her lap and held it up for her dragons to see. All three of them eyed it hungrily. Rhaegal spread green wings and stirred the air, and Viserion’s neck swayed back and forth like a long pale snake’s as he followed the movement of her hand. “Drogon,” Dany said softly, “dracarys.” And she tossed the pork in the air.

Drogon moved quicker than a striking cobra. Flame roared from his mouth, orange and scarlet and black, searing the meat before it began to fall. As his sharp black teeth snapped shut around it, Rhaegal’s head darted close, as if to steal the prize from his brother’s jaws, but Drogon swallowed and screamed, and the smaller green dragon could only hiss in frustration.

“Stop that, Rhaegal,” Dany said in annoyance, giving his head a swat.

“You had the last one. I’ll have no greedy dragons.” She smiled at Ser Jorah. “I won’t need to char their meat over a brazier any longer.”

“So I see. Dracarys?”

All three dragons turned their heads at the sound of that word, and Viserion let loose with a blast of pale gold flame that made Ser Jorah take a hasty step backward. Dany giggled. “Be careful with that word, ser, or they’re like to singe your beard off. It means ‘dragonfire’ in High Valyrian. I wanted to choose a command that no one was like to utter by chance.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

She feels a lot of pride for them and knows how to distinguish each of them:

Every man of them, from captain to cook’s boy, loved to watch the three fly … though none so much as Dany.

[...] Viserion’s scales were the color of fresh cream, his horns, wing bones, and spinal crest a dark gold that flashed bright as metal in the sun. Rhaegal was made of the green of summer and the bronze of fall. They soared above the ships in wide circles, higher and higher, each trying to climb above the other.

[...] Drogon was aloft as well, though not in sight; he would be miles ahead, or miles behind, hunting.

He was always hungry, her Drogon. (ASOS Daenerys I)

Now, does this scene prevent any of these aspects from being true for show!Dany as well? No. That being said, not only these aspects don't come across as strongly in this scene (aside from how proud she is of them), it's also important to notice the show's priorities: they would rather focus on how show!Dany is dissatisfied with their slow growth because of her need to wage war and take back the Iron Throne (which, as I said in this post, is only a means to an end rather than the end that Dany really wants). Benioff describes Dany as "fiercely ambitious" and says in this video that "what she wants, more than anything, is to return home and to reclaim her birthright". I can't agree with these descriptions, so I need to call out this scene's priorities.

*

Related to how Benioff feels about Dany, we also have show!Dany saying this:

DAENERYS: Not fast enough. I can't wait that long. I need an army.

At this point in the books, Dany isn't even thinking of that, she is thinking that she will go to Pentos and meet Illyrio.

“From Meereen I am sold to Qohor, and then to Pentos and the fat man with sweet stink in his hair. He it was who send Strong Belwas back across the sea, and old Whitebeard to serve him.”

The fat man with sweet stink in his hair ... “Illyrio?” she said. “You were sent by Magister Illyrio?”

“We were, Your Grace,” old Whitebeard replied. (ACOK Daenerys V)

(Now, it could be argued, like @rainhadaenerys​ did in this meta, that show!Dany has more agency than Dany when she realizes, on her own, that she needs an army. It's a valid perspective that can coexist with what I'm saying here.)

This change doesn't bode well with the fact that they are choosing to portray the Iron Throne as show!Dany's most important goal when, like I just said, this is not what primarily motivates Dany. They are making show!Dany more ambitious (which, again, is not a bad thing in and of itself) than in canon and will have her pay the price for that later on.

*

JORAH: We'll be in Astapor by nightfall. Some say the Unsullied are the greatest soldiers in the world.

DAENERYS: The greatest slave-soldiers in the world. The distinction means a good deal to some people.

If D&D were following Dany's characterization, she wouldn't be aware of how deplorable and unacceptable slavery is at this point:

“...In Astapor you can buy Unsullied.”

“The slaves in the spiked bronze hats?” Dany had seen Unsullied guards in the Free Cities, posted at the gates of magisters, archons, and dynasts. “Why should I want Unsullied? They don’t even ride horses, and most of them are fat.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

Some people could argue that show!Dany's awareness of these issues from the get-go is a good change. However, I think it detracts from Dany's character development quite a bit. As @khaleesirin​ says here:

Dany’s supposed arbitrariness and hypocrisy ranging from “why wasn’t she against slavery earlier?” to “why did she leave Astapor?” stem from the fact that her beliefs, her core principles, were “anti-foundational”; they didn’t come from some pre-existing knowledge she adapted as a priori truth. They were all a result of her actual experiences. (x)

With this change, show!Dany misses out on the chance to receive this sort of growth; it detracts from her arc being of someone who develops her political goals and moral values along the way and may actually later validate claims that Dany is too self-righteous (she never was). Now, to be fair to the show writers (and I know this can be hard), particularly to Weiss (who, at least back in 2013, seemed to be much more sympathetic towards Dany than Benioff), he knows that Dany was a slave herself and that that informs her feelings and eventual actions against the masters (And so does Emilia Clarke). Even so, I have to say: I don't think Dany would have gone to Astapor if she were fully aware of the implications of being complicit in the slave trade.

“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”

“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.

Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”

“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“I want to sail now, not on the tide, I want to sail far and fast and never look back. But I can’t, can I? There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

In these passages, we find out that witnessing the Unsullied's training is so hard for Dany that it makes her cry. It makes her question Jorah's honor as a knight for having thought that it was okay to bring her there. It makes her want to leave Astapor and never look back. I would say that Dany is an accidental queen (in the sense that she only became one for very specific circumstances, namely that all the men around her died) and, similarly, an accidental revolutionary - not in the sense that her haters argue (i.e. she just wanted an army and it became convenient to free the slaves), but rather because she only ended up in Astapor for very specific reasons: a) she didn't know how wrong slavery was and thought that slaves were treated like normal servants and b) she needed an army (not because of her "ambition", but because she realized that she shouldn't depend entirely on Illyrio and remain a beggar queen).

Show!Dany, on the other hand, knows that slavery is unacceptable and still sails to Astapor. Some things remain like they are in the books despite that change: like Dany, show!Dany still feels empathy for the slaves and risks a dragon solely because she wanted to free them. However, on a superficial read, it gives a bit of weight to the notion that she is too ambitious or that freeing the slaves was only a secondary goal to that of getting an army. Even if show canon can still disprove these claims, it's frustrating because they would be even easier to debunk if the show writers had been more faithful to the books.

*

JORAH: Do those people have any better ideas about how to put you on the Iron Throne?

DAENERYS: It's too beautiful a day to argue.

One of Dany's core traits is that she is open-minded and accepting of feedback, both positive and negative.

“A queen must listen to all,” she reminded him. “The highborn and the low, the strong and the weak, the noble and the venal. One voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be found.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

~

The old man had not wanted to sail to Astapor; nor did he favor buying this slave army. A queen should hear all sides before reaching a decision. That was why Dany had brought him with her to the Plaza of Pride, not to keep her safe. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“Your Grace, I did not mean to give offense.”

“Only lies offend me, never honest counsel.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

This characteristic, however, doesn't come across in this scene, in which show!Dany is brushing off any discussion and trying to retain her own opinion on the matter. 

Now, this is not to say that there aren't moments in which we see show!Dany listening to her advisors and following their counsel (there are many) - heck, even now, she is following show!Jorah's advice since she is still going to Astapor despite her misgivings. 

However, considering that:

a) the show is, in this episode, adapting parts of ACOK Daenerys V and ASOS Daenerys I and II (all of which contain explicit moments of Dany asking for advice and feedback and truth from her advisors, even if they disagree with her),

b) the show will later try to paint show!Dany as reckless or dangerous when she doesn't listen to her advisors and

c) there's a widespread misconception that Dany (especially the show version) is unable to consider other people's perspectives... I end up looking askance at this scene. 

They could have written many others (such as any of the three examples from the books that I showed above) that would have left us with a different impression of Dany. Worse scenes will come, of course, but I'm taking note of every single thing that may have helped to mischaracterize Dany in the eyes of the general audience.

Also, unlike show!Dany (who isn't shown onscreen offering either counterarguments or "better ideas" than show!Jorah's advice to turn Astapor), Dany is shown onpage making lots of questions to Jorah's counsel before deciding to follow it:

“How am I to buy a thousand slave soldiers? All I have of value is the crown the Tourmaline Brotherhood gave me.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

~

“Those are Illyrio’s tiger skins,” she objected.
“And Illyrio is a friend to House Targaryen.”
 (ASOS Daenerys I)

~

“There will be dangers on such a long march ...” (ASOS Daenerys I)

~

“What if Captain Groleo refuses to change course, though? And Arstan, Strong Belwas, what will they do?” (ASOS Daenerys I)

While it could be argued that Dany is not offering "better ideas" here either, that's not my point: my point is that Dany is being shown here as an active player who takes part in discussions of which course of action to take, which is not what we tend to see in the show. Indeed, there are plenty of moments in which the series has show!Dany follow her advisors' counsel with no objections or complements of her own at all. That's why there are lots of different flavors of misconceptions about Dany: when it comes to whether she listens to people's advice or not, some argue that she can't think on her own and depends too much on them, some argue that she is too self-absorbed and never listens. In D&D's case, they have said that show!Dany has only relied on the men around her for the first two seasons, which is blatantly untrue in the books - see examples of Dany making her own decisions in both AGOT and ACOK here and here. Their misunderstanding of Dany is what makes me wary of this scene (for it is informed by said misunderstanding), so it's necessary to point out that what it intends to convey about show!Dany isn't what the books intend to convey about Dany.

*

Then, we have this:

DAENERYS: It's too beautiful a day to argue.

(Dothraki man vomiting)

JORAH: You're right. Another lovely day on the high seas.

DAENERYS: Don't mock them. They're the first Dothraki who have ever been on a ship. They followed me across the poison water. If they'll do it, others will. And with a true khalasar ...

JORAH: The Dothraki follow strength above all, khaleesi. You'll have a true khalasar when you prove yourself strong. And not before.

This exchange may be brief, but it is wrong and offensive on so many levels.

First, show!Dany seems to suggest that she is interested in expanding her khalasar when she says that "if they'll [follow her across the poison water], others will", which is something Dany never expressed any desire to do in the books.

Second, both show!Dany and show!Jorah think that the former doesn't really have "a true khalasar". Why doesn't she have a "true khalasar"? Is it because they are too few? Is it because show!Dany hasn't proven herself strong (as show!Jorah puts it)? In any case, both suggestions are bullshit. Dany does consider her "meager" group (as she puts it) a khalasar:

“We follow the comet,” Dany told her khalasar. (ACOK Daenerys I)

~

Yet even as her dragons prospered, her khalasar withered and died. (ACOK Daenerys I)

~

Aggo, Jhogo, and Rakharo were brave warriors, but they were young, and too valuable to risk. They kept her khalasar together, and were her best scouts too. (ASOS Daenerys V)

Also, while I've criticized the underdevelopment of Dany's khalasar before, each of them have different reactions to traveling at sea, so the show's portrayal manages to make their lack of characterization even worse:

Her brave young bloodriders had stared off at the dwindling coastline with huge white eyes, each of the three determined to show no fear before the other two, while her handmaids Irri and Jhiqui clutched the rail desperately and retched over the side at every little swell. The rest of Dany’s tiny khalasar remained below decks, preferring the company of their nervous horses to the terrifying landless world about the ships. When a sudden squall had enveloped them six days into the voyage, she heard them through the hatches; the horses kicking and screaming, the riders praying in thin quavery voices each time Balerion heaved or swayed. (ASOS Daenerys I)

Perhaps more importantly, unlike what show!Jorah says, Dany's khalasar is already devoted and faithful to Dany ever since she walked out of the pyre unscathed with three dragons. They already think that she is strong:

She was naked, covered with soot, her clothes turned to ash, her beautiful hair all crisped away ... yet she was unhurt.

[...] The men of her khas came up behind him. Jhogo was the first to lay his arakh at her feet. “Blood of my blood,” he murmured, pushing his face to the smoking earth. “Blood of my blood,” she heard Aggo echo. “Blood of my blood,” Rakharo shouted.

And after them came her handmaids, and then the others, all the Dothraki, men and women and children, and Dany had only to look at their eyes to know that they were hers now, today and tomorrow and forever, hers as they had never been Drogo’s. (AGOT Daenerys X)

~

“We follow the comet,” Dany told her khalasar. Once it was said, no word was raised against it. They had been Drogo’s people, but they were hers now. The Unburnt, they called her, and Mother of Dragons. Her word was their law. (ACOK Daenerys I)

~

Jhiqui had braided her hair Dothraki-fashion, and fastened a silver bell to the end of the braid. “I have won no victories,” she tried telling her handmaid when the bell tinkled softly.

Jhiqui disagreed. “You burned the maegi in their house of dust and sent their souls to hell.” (ACOK Daenerys V)

At this point, Dany doesn't have to prove herself as a leader to anyone because she has already done so. However, D&D seem to think that show!Dany still has to. What's even worse is that this plot point will be forgotten; show!Dany's khalasar will only make a brief appearance in season four and then disappear until she's captured and later unites all the khalasars to her cause. Then, when show!Dany crosses the narrow sea in season six, the Dothraki's fear of the "poison water" will no longer be an inconvenience (even though she is carrying thousands of them). It's lazy writing that, nonetheless, undermines Dany's character.

Finally, while at least they have show!Dany empathizing with the Dothraki the way Dany also does in the book, I wish the writers had made show!Dany empathize with the Dothraki based on her experiences like Dany does, because it highlights that Dany is humble and views herself as an equal to them:

The Dothraki distrusted the sea and all that moved upon it. Water that a horse could not drink was water they wanted no part of. They will learn, Dany resolved. I braved their sea with Khal Drogo. Now they can brave mine. (ACOK Daenerys V)

This scene may last for less than two minutes, but, as you can see, there's still a lot of wrong (or at least questionable) to dissect in it.

Scene 2

Summary: show!Dany is given a tour of the Unsullied barracks by Kraznys while show!Missandei translates his Valyrian into the Common Tongue. Show!Dany is outraged by their training, but show!Jorah still urges her to purchase them. On the way to the ship, show!Dany is distracted by a child who turns out to be an assassin sent to deliver a deadly manticore to kill her. Show!Barristan impales the manticore with his dagger and the child leaves. Then, show!Barristan introduces himself to show!Dany and offers her his service.

Considering how other aspects were poorly handled, I think Dany’s discomfort with the Unsullied’s training was translated relatively well from the books to the show. Even so, I wish they had added more of Dany's emotional reactions:

“What is he doing?” Dany demanded of the girl, as the blood ran down the man’s chest. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“How can that be?” she demanded through the scribe. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“No names?” Dany frowned at the little scribe. “Can that be what the Good Master said? They have no names?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

Dany’s mouth surely twisted at that. Did he see, or is he blind as well as cruel? She turned away quickly, trying to keep her face a mask until she heard the translation. Only then did she allow herself to say, “Whose infants do they slay?”

“To win his spiked cap, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother’s eyes. In this way, we make certain that there is no weakness left in them.”

She was feeling faint. The heat, she tried to tell herself. “You take a babe from its mother’s arms, kill it as she watches, and pay for her pain with a silver coin?”

When the translation was made for him, Kraznys mo Nakloz laughed aloud. “What a soft mewling fool this one is. Tell the whore of Westeros that the mark is for the child’s owner, not the mother. The Unsullied are not permitted to steal.” He tapped his whip against his leg. “Tell her that few ever fail that test. The dogs are harder for them, it must be said. We give each boy a puppy on the day that he is cut. At the end of the first year, he is required to strangle it. Any who cannot are killed, and fed to the surviving dogs. It makes for a good strong lesson, we find.”

Arstan Whitebeard tapped the end of his staff on the bricks as he listened to that. Tap tap tap. Slow and steady. Tap tap tap. Dany saw him turn his eyes away, as if he could not bear to look at Kraznys any longer. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Even the part where show!Dany is horrified by the discovery that the Unsullied are forced to kill a baby while its mother watches (which at least the show writers rightly focused on) doesn't convey a lot of emotion like in the books... It doesn't seem like show!Dany is struggling to hide her revulsion or that her blood pressure is lowering because of her anxiety in the moment. I understand, however, that the directors never allowed Emilia Clarke to express too many feelings in her portrayal of show!Dany, so I don't tend to blame her.

I also want to take note of what is in line with the Unsullied's training in the books:

The Unsullied are forced to stand for a day with no food or water to prove their discipline and strength.

The beginning of their training, the drilling from dawn to dusk and the mastering of the weapons.

The Unsullied not being considered men.

The Unsullied not moving even after their nipples are cut off.

The Unsullied needing to go to the slave marts to kill a baby before its mother’s eyes.

There are some things that were changed or omitted, however:

Even more Unsullied die during their training: only one boy in four survives rather than one boy in three. (Which makes it even more disgusting that they will try to frame "conciliation" with and "mercy" towards the slavers as the better path in the later seasons)

No mention of the “wine of courage”, which the Unsullied drink in the books to feel less pain and endure any torture.

No mention of the puppies that the Unsullied are given only to be forced to kill a year later (and, if they don’t, they are fed to the surviving dogs).

No mention that their names are changed every day so that they lose their sense of individuality. This will be included on episode 3.5, however.

Kraznys is not shown whipping Missandei and other slaves.

Overall, the show gave us enough reasons to understand why show!Dany's rebellion against the slave masters is righteous.

The biggest problem of the scene was replacing Barristan for Jorah as the advisor who is with Dany when she meets the Unsullied: it gives room to the perspective of a slaver, who attempts to normalize the masters' treatment of the Unsullied. This undermines how abhorrent and unjust their training is. Right off the bat, we have our first sign that the show will turn into slavery apologia (to the point of later comparing Dany to the Nazis and the Ghiscari slavers to the Jews via subtext).

In the books, there is a Doylist reason as to why Barristan is with Dany when she meets the Unsullied for the first time: his presence and opinions emphasize how wrong and unacceptable the training of the Unsullied is.

“I call that madness, not courage,” said Arstan Whitebeard, when the solemn little scribe was done. He tapped the end of his hardwood staff against the bricks, tap tap, as if to tell his displeasure. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“You have lived long in the world, Whitebeard. Now that you have seen them, what do you say?”

“I say no, Your Grace,” the old man answered at once.
 (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

Arstan Whitebeard’s face was still, but his staff beat out his rage. Tap tap tap. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“Bricks and blood built Astapor,” Whitebeard murmured at her side, “and bricks and blood her people.”

“What is that?” Dany asked him, curious.

“An old rhyme a maester taught me, when I was a boy. I never knew how true it was. The bricks of Astapor are red with the blood of the slaves who make them.”

“I can well believe that,” said Dany.

“Then leave this place before your heart turns to brick as well. Sail this very night, on the evening tide.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

That's not to say, of course, that he was the one who motivated Dany to begin her abolitionist campaign (that's her decision and only hers), only that his appearance influences the framing of the scene (just like show!Jorah's appearance does). It also has negative implications for show!Dany's characterization, since, as @yendany​ said here, Dany may have unconsciously desired to have someone with an anti-slavery stance (like hers) by her side when she chose to have Barristan accompany her to meet the Unsullied.

Also, having show!Jorah be with show!Dany when she sees the training of the Unsullied means erasing the fact that, in the books, Dany left Jorah on the ship because he forced a kiss on her and she no longer trusted him enough to be alone with him. Erasing this event from the books means that Jorah's creepy and disrespectful behaviors toward Dany are, in the show writers' opinion, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, which is horrible. I will talk more about this issue in the post discussing the things from the books that the show completely left out, but I still felt the need to briefly address this here.

Replacing Barristan for Jorah also led to one of Dany's best assertions to be cut:

“Better to come a beggar than a slaver,” Arstan said.

“There speaks one who has been neither.” Dany’s nostrils flared. “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and
I ... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

In the books, this scene highlights a few things:

Dany is not looking for an army because she is "fiercely ambitious", but because she lived in poverty for years and saw her brother not getting the help he needed (something she also experienced in Qarth, despite having dragons). She knows it's not a good idea to rely entirely on others, which is why she went to Astapor. (besides her ignorance, which I already explained above and in this post)

Despite empathizing with the slaves' plight, Barristan did not go through what they went through (he is a well-intentioned ally, as you will). Dany, on the other hand, did. She was a sex slave once and does not need to be reminded that being complicit in the slave trade is morally wrong. She still remembers "how it felt to be afraid".

Show!Jorah would never say that it's "better to come a beggar than a slaver" because he is okay with slavery, making it harder for this assertion to be added. It wasn't impossible for the show writers to have added it, however - they could have simply had show!Dany be less confrontational and say, by her own initiative, that she knows what it is like to be sold and that she hasn't forgotten how it felt to be afraid. To be fair, as I already said, Weiss shows awareness that Dany's empathy is informed by the fact that she was a slave before, but there isn't any scene in the show explicitly making that point, which is quite a shame. Instead, most of the scenes seem to communicate Benioff's reading of the events:

Benioff: Idealism is wonderful, but it's not gonna happen if you're idealistic, you gotta be a realist. She feels like she has this almost divine mission and nothing is gonna prevent her from achieving it. (x)

~

Benioff: For Daenerys to win, ultimately, she's gonna have to be just as ruthless as the others, and maybe even moreso. (x)

This idea that show!Dany needs to be a "realist" makes it very likely that Benioff (and who knows which other writers) sides with show!Jorah on this discussion. This also explains why his perspective is being favored to the detriment of show!Dany's and show!Barristan's.

Also, I've already written an entire post about how Dany is not primarily driven by prophecies or destiny or, as Benioff puts it, a "divine mission".

Also, he misses out on the fact that Dany's idealism in the books (and even in the show) actually pays off. As I said here:

Like with Viserys and Drogo, Dany is influenced by both of their [Jorah's and Barristan's] recommendations and apply them in different ways while forging her own path: she will not help to maintain the oppression of the slaves like Barristan advised her, but she won’t play by the rules (because they view human beings as objects to be sold and invalidate her moral values, so they shouldn’t be acknowledged as such to begin with) like Jorah advised her: she will break the rules because of her moral duty (as she sees it) to free the slaves.

And yes, this act of rebellion will have negative (and unintended) consequences later in ASOS and ADWD, but it was still righteous and necessary for it to have happened for the reasons expressed in these links. To summarize them, ending the supremacy of the masters will always be a good thing, and this wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for Dany's idealism. The books validate her idealism instead of belittling it.

*

DAENERYS: How many do you have to sell?

MISSANDEI: She asks how many Unsullied are for sale. (Kraznys points eight fingers) 8,000.

KRAZNYS: Tell the Westerosi whore she has until tomorrow.

MISSANDEI: Master Kraznys asks that you please hurry. Many other buyers are interested.

I'm singling out this part of show!Dany's talk with Kraznys and show!Missandei because I don't think the show writers really understood why Dany asked "how many do you have to sell?" in the books. First, let's see the context in which she made that question:

“Tell her it is well she came to Astapor, then. Ask her how large an army she wishes to buy.”

“How many Unsullied do you have to sell?”

“Eight thousand fully trained and available at present.[”] (ASOS Daenerys II)

As I said in this post, Dany doesn’t ask how large an army she wants (though she admits she needs soldiers), but rather how many Unsullied he has to sell. This is one of the several hints that she wants to rescue them all (not her interest to buy an army), even she must go to extreme lengths to do so. See also this passage:

“I want to sail now, not on the tide, I want to sail far and fast and never look back. But I can’t, can I? There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

She doesn't have to find a way to buy eight thousand of them. Jorah himself had only advised her to buy a thousand. But then, again, it's because she wants to free them all.

In the show, this doesn't come across. Aside from her uneasiness about the training, the show cuts all of the other moments hinting that Dany will do against the slave trade rather than be complicit in it.

“The Good Master has said that these eunuchs cannot be tempted with coin or flesh,” Dany told the girl, “but if some enemy of mine should offer them freedom for betraying me …” (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

Dany knew she would take more than a hundred, if she took any at all. (ASOS Daenerys II)

It wouldn’t have been hard to have her say it out loud that she will take “more than a hundred, if any at all” or that she can’t leave the city now. It wouldn’t have been hard for her to ask Kraznys about what would happen if a hypothetical enemy offered freedom to the Unsullied.

*

To be fair, we also see show!Dany saying this to show!Jorah while they are going back to the ship:

DAENERYS: 8,000 dead babies.

Like the Dany of the books, show!Dany is also distressed at the systematic killings that allowed for the Unsullied to become who they are, so I can't say that they are only making her motivations be about the need to get an army (though, as I showed above, they overfocused on that need too). Anyway, this brings me to this part:

DAENERYS: 8,000 dead babies.

JORAH: The Unsullied are a means to an end.

DAENERYS: Once I own them, these men ...

JORAH: They're not men. Not anymore.

Unlike in the show, Dany is the one who reminds Jorah that the Unsullied are no longer men. However, the reason why she does so is completely different from show!Jorah's:

“How many men do they have for sale?”

“None.” Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks? “They sell eunuchs, not men. Eunuchs made of brick, like the rest of Astapor. Shall I buy eight thousand brick eunuchs with dead eyes that never move, who kill suckling babes for the sake of a spiked hat and strangle their own dogs? They don’t even have names. So don’t call them men, ser.”

“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”

“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.

Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”

“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

I will quote myself on the significance of this scene:

Here, Dany recognizes that no human being should ever have to undergo the sort of systematic abuse and torture that the Unsullied were forced to experience in order to become as subservient as they are. Dany recognizes how dehumanizing and unacceptable that sort of treatment was for making them “like one man” meant for sale (or “not men” at all) - that’s why she tells Jorah to not call them men: she asks that he doesn’t erase their suffering and talk as if the way they were treated was, in any way, acceptable.

Jorah doesn’t understand any of this, though. While his advice for Dany to go to Astapor ultimately paid off because of Dany’s actions, we should remind ourselves that he did her no favor. I’ve already shown in another post how he still has no problem with slavery even after being exiled, and you can see that in the next passage below: he can’t understand why would Dany be angry at him for advising her to go to Astapor to buy them nor why would she be appalled by how they are treated, so he tries to normalize the situation by focusing on how effective as a force they can be (“the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained…”). That’s enough for Dany, who rightfully slaps him in the face.

She makes it clear here: if he were her true knight, he wouldn’t have brought her to Astapor. (And that he forced a kiss on her and looked at her breasts without her consent makes her anger even more pronounced, rightfully so.) Thankfully, Dany is a true queen, but not because of him.

Does any of this come across in the show? No. For one, as I said above, show!Dany is given less agency because she needs to be reminded that the Unsullied are no longer men and her righteous anger toward Jorah is erased. For two, show!Jorah's perspective is again prioritized and never called out as immoral like in the books. (Again, the show writers' bias in his favor is showing).

*

Their dialogue goes on like this:

DAENERYS: Once I own an army of slaves, what will I be?

JORAH: Do you think these slaves will have better lives serving Kraznys and men like him or serving you? You'll be fair to them. You won't mutilate them to make a point. You won't order them to murder babies. You'll see they're properly fed and sheltered. A great injustice has been done to them. Closing your eyes will not undo it.

While it's true that Jorah also gives arguments as to why Dany should buy the Unsullied, they are different ones:

“I saw King’s Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. Brick they may be, as you say, but if you buy them henceforth the only dogs they’ll kill are those you want dead. And you do have some dogs you want dead, as I recall.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

We'll see some of these arguments from ASOS Daenerys II being expressed in episode 3.3, but that's not my point: my point is that the show writers prioritized show!Jorah's point of view so much that they created new arguments for him to make show!Jorah seem, as Benioff puts it, "realist". In the books, for instance, Jorah never acknowledges that “a great injustice has been done to them” - he only focuses on how they'll be useful to Dany and how they'll cause less collateral damage (which is what Dany wants). So, again, we had foreshadowing for the show's turn into slavery apologia right from the beginning of show!Dany's storyline, especially when one compares it to the books (which are far from perfect; I've already criticized, for instance, the books' lack of attention to the freedmen's perspectives. Even then, however, I doubt they'll be justifying slavery any time soon).

*

Then we get to the scene in the docks. Honestly, I don't understand why they changed it so much. I’m not even referring to the fact that it takes place in Astapor rather than Qarth, but rather to other two major divergences.

First, in the books, Jorah notices that he and Dany are being followed:

As they made their way toward the next quay, Ser Jorah laid a hand against the small of her back. “Your Grace. You are being followed. No, do not turn.” (ACOK Daenerys V)

Dany makes plenty of questions and observations about the followers as she observes them:

Dany let her glance sweep over the strangers. The brown man was near as wide as he’d looked in the platter, with a gleaming bald head and the smooth cheeks of a eunuch. A long curving arakh was thrust through the sweat-stained yellow silk of his bellyband. Above the silk, he was naked but for an absurdly tiny iron-studded vest. Old scars crisscrossed his tree-trunk arms, huge chest, and massive belly, pale against his nut-brown skin.

The other man wore a traveler’s cloak of undyed wool, the hood thrown back. Long white hair fell to his shoulders, and a silky white beard covered the lower half of his face. He leaned his weight on a hardwood staff as tall as he was. Only fools would stare so openly if they meant me harm. All the same, it might be prudent to head back toward Jhogo and Aggo. “The old man does not wear a sword,” she said to Jorah in the Common Tongue as she drew him away. (ACOK Daenerys V)

She also has a very funny scene with a merchant; he wants to sell a platter for an expensive price and she keeps asking for it to go down, but she is actually only using the platter to pay attention to how the two men following her look like and what they will do. It’s a scene showcasing both her cleverness and her sense of humor:

“A most excellent brass, great lady,” the merchant exclaimed. “Bright as the sun! And for the Mother of Dragons, only thirty honors.”

The platter was worth no more than three. “Where are my guards?” Dany declared. “This man is trying to rob me!” For Jorah, she lowered her voice and spoke in the Common Tongue. “They may not mean me ill. Men have looked at women since time began, perhaps it is no more than that.”

The brass-seller ignored their whispers. “Thirty? Did I say thirty? Such a fool I am. The price is twenty honors.”

“All the brass in this booth is not worth twenty honors,” Dany told him as she studied the reflections. The old man had the look of Westeros about him, and the brown-skinned one must weigh twenty stone. The Usurper offered a lordship to the man who kills me, and these two are far from home. Or could they be creatures of the warlocks, meant to take me unawares? (ACOK Daenerys V)

Second, in the books, a Qartheen offers Dany a jewel box:

A Qartheen stepped into her path. “Mother of Dragons, for you.” He knelt and thrust a jewel box into her face.

Dany took it almost by reflex. The box was carved wood, its mother-of-pearl lid inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. “You are too generous.” She opened it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. This will help pay for our passage. (ACOK Daenerys V)

It makes sense for Dany to fall into this person's trap because she was receiving gifts from the Qartheen and people from other regions all the time during her stay simply for being the Mother of Dragons. (Which is not to say that they ultimately helped her; they did not)

In the show, a random child somehow captures show!Dany’s attention enough so that show!Dany follows her for no reason and then gets fooled. It doesn’t make much sense and actually portrays show!Dany as someone who is easily distracted by things. The only detail that is salvageable is that show!Dany is able to guess that the assassin was sent by the warlocks, just like Dany applies the knowledge she had previously received of the Sorrowful Men to correctly identify the person who tried to kill her as one.

*

Finally, we get to show!Barristan's introduction.

DAENERYS: You know this man?

JORAH: I know him as one of the greatest fighters the Seven Kingdoms has ever seen and as the Lord Commander of Robert Baratheon's Kingsguard.

BARRISTAN: King Robert is dead. I have been searching for you, Daenerys Stormborn, to ask your forgiveness. I was sworn to protect your family. I failed them. I am Barristan Selmy, Kingsguard to your father. Allow me to join your Queensguard and I will not fail you again.

First, as I said above, the show erases most (if not all) the moments in which Jorah attempts to isolate Dany from other men and make her distrust them. This moment is one of those:

“You know him?” Dany asked the exile knight, lost.

“I saw him perhaps a dozen times ... from afar most often, standing with his brothers or riding in some tourney. But every man in the Seven Kingdoms knew Barristan the Bold.” He laid the point of his sword against the old man’s neck. “Khaleesi, before you kneels Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, who betrayed your House to serve the Usurper Robert Baratheon.” (ASOS Daenerys V)

Jorah's description of Barristan in the books is much less flattering than the one from the show because Jorah is hellbent on isolating Dany from other men.

Second, I know most fans think that having Barristan reveal his identity right away was ultimately a good choice for practical reasons (i.e., it would be too easy for the fans to remember Barristan's actor and figure out his identity), but I think this change ultimately did far more harm than good.

How did show!Barristan track show!Dany? Why would he think she was going to Astapor? How could he have known if he didn't have Illyrio's (or anyone's) support?

How was he aware that the warlocks sent an assassin after Dany? In the books, he saves her on a rush, after the manticore left the jewel box. In the show, he drops the ball before the manticore leaves it. For some unknown reason, he already knew that it had the intent to kill her.

In the books, Barristan is supposed to serve as a positive contrast to Jorah's negative behaviors when they are both put on trial for betraying Dany's trust. Because show!Barristan reveals his identity early on, the contrast is lost.

Barristan is the one who tells Dany about Jorah's betrayal in the books. Since it wouldn't make sense for show!Barristan to only tell show!Dany about this later on, the show writers had the Lannisters randomly think that Dany is a threat, that Dany and Jorah are a good duo that must be separated and that sending a letter pardoning Jorah would necessarily do the deed. Not only that's stupid (Jorah received and sent letters without Dany's knowledge in both mediums), it also validates the idea that show!Jorah is good to show!Dany (something that the showrunners think is the case). These are all unfortunate consequences that arose from the early reveal of show!Barristan's identity.

By revealing himself earlier, show!Barristan loses his arc from the books, which was partly about finding a liege who was morally worthy of being served after he spent years in the service of bad kings. (He might say later in episode 3.5 that he's looking for the right person to follow, but his actions don't show it in any way.) That Barristan hid his identity and only pledged his sword to Dany because he realized that she was more than Rhaegar's sister, but also a queen in her own right, speaks volumes to his character development and to how we're supposed to see Dany in a sympathetic manner. Unfortunately, the show writers (especially Benioff) don't like Dany very much. As this review hopefully shows (and others will make it even clearer), they go out of their way to undermine her intelligence and empathy and humbleness and all of the other traits that make Dany who she is, while GRRM goes out of his way to portray Dany in a sympathetic light, with this chapter review from @turtle-paced​ showing a perfect example of how he does so.

Third, I don't understand why the show made the question of whether show!Dany would accept show!Barristan's service as the episode's cliffhanger. First, book readers would already know that she would. Second, show!Barristan won't be treated any differently in the next episodes than he would be if they had met earlier (aside from show!Jorah's distrustful remarks). Third, I don't like how leaving this scene as the episode's cliffhanger makes us wonder if show!Dany will be merciful or not. We can point to her later actions and realize that she will be, but this shouldn't have been a question in the first place. It helps to mischaracterize Dany in the eyes of the public audience and doesn't convey that some of Dany's core traits are being open-minded and forgiving.  

In the books, Dany doesn't really feel angry with Barristan. It's more that he becomes collateral damage after she finds out that Jorah, the person she trusted the most at that point in time, was lying to her from the very beginning:

“...And since the day you wed Khal Drogo, there has been an informer by your side selling your secrets, trading whispers to the Spider for gold and promises.”

He cannot mean ... “You are mistaken.” Dany looked at Jorah Mormont. “Tell him he’s mistaken. There’s no informer. Ser Jorah, tell him. We crossed the Dothraki sea together, and the red waste ...” Her heart fluttered like a bird in a trap. “Tell him, Jorah. Tell him how he got it wrong.”

“The Others take you, Selmy.” Ser Jorah flung his longsword to the carpet. “Khaleesi, it was only at the start, before I came to know you ... before I came to love ...”

“Do not say that word!” She backed away from him. “How could you? What did the Usurper promise you? Gold, was it gold?” The Undying had said she would be betrayed twice more, once for gold and once for love. “Tell me what you were promised?”

“Varys said ... I might go home.” He bowed his head.

I was going to take you home! Her dragons sensed her fury. Viserion roared, and smoke rose grey from his snout. Drogon beat the air with black wings, and Rhaegal twisted his head back and belched flame. I should say the word and burn the two of them. Was there no one she could trust, no one to keep her safe? “Are all the knights of Westeros so false as you two? Get out, before my dragons roast you both. What does roast liar smell like? As foul as Brown Ben’s sewers? Go!”

Ser Barristan rose stiff and slow. For the first time, he looked his age. “Where shall we go, Your Grace?”

“To hell, to serve King Robert.” Dany felt hot tears on her cheeks. Drogon screamed, lashing his tail back and forth. “The Others can have you both.” Go, go away forever, both of you, the next time I see your faces I’ll have your traitors’ heads off. She could not say the words, though. They betrayed me. But they saved me. But they lied. “You go ...” My bear, my fierce strong bear, what will I do without him? And the old man, my brother’s friend. (ASOS Daenerys V)

Before she knew about Jorah's deception, Dany is more puzzled and surprised about Barristan's identity reveal than anything else:

She was more confused than angry. He has played me false, just as Jorah warned me, yet he saved my life just now.

Ser Jorah flushed red. “Mero shaved his beard, but you grew one, didn’t you? No wonder you looked so bloody familiar ...”

“You know him?” Dany asked the exile knight, lost.

~

“Why are you here?” Dany demanded of him. “If Robert sent you to kill me, why did you save my life?” He served the Usurper. He betrayed Rhaegar’s memory, and abandoned Viserys to live and die in exile. Yet if he wanted me dead, he need only have stood
aside ... “I want the whole truth now, on your honor as a knight. Are you the Usurper’s man, or mine?”

~

“Quiet,” said Dany. “I’ll hear him out.”

In this sense, I think Emilia Clarke's expression manages to capture how the Dany of the books must have felt when Barristan's identity was revealed; perplexed, but also grateful that he saved her life.

Also, they have show!Dany ask show!Jorah if he knows show!Barristan without the proper context: in the books, she only makes that question because he made an unpleasant comment about Barristan. In the show, she asks if he knows who he is in a way that makes her seem more dependent on him than it would have been if they had been faithful to the books.

My comments on the Inside the Episode 3.1

Benioff: For a great leader who is doing something unpopular for a certain segment, whether it's the Warlocks or the slave masters or whatnot, she's creating a lot of enemies, and powerful enemies, and those people are going to try to stop her regardless of how powerful she becomes, and it's something she's actually, in a weird way, used to, because she grew up running from assassins with her brother, you know, from the time, from the earliest time she can remember, she was being spirited from one city to another one step ahead of Robert Baratheon and the assassins, because there were so many people who wanted to destroy the Targaryen family and make King Robert happy and now there are thousands out there for all sorts of different reasons because she's made even more enemies, but, I think in her mind this is just the price you pay for being Daenerys Targaryen, for being the last of the Targaryens, and it's not going to stop her.

Benioff is not entirely inaccurate when it comes to Dany feeling that she's always been on the run:

It was not by choice that she sought the waterfront. She was fleeing again. Her whole life had been one long flight, it seemed. She had begun running in her mother’s womb, and never once stopped. How often had she and Viserys stolen away in the black of night, a bare step ahead of the Usurper’s hired knives? But it was run or die. (ACOK Daenerys V)

ASOS Daenerys V is particularly heartbreaking in that sense when she decides to leave her tent and interact with her people only to almost be killed by Mero:

She had no enemies among her children.

~

“Your Grace.” Arstan knelt. “I am an old man, and shamed. He should never have gotten close enough to seize you. I was lax. I did not know him without his beard and hair.”

“No more than I did.” Dany took a deep breath to stop her shaking. Enemies everywhere.

However, Benioff forgets Dany's very first chapter:

They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in any one place. Her brother would not allow it. The Usurper’s hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one. (AGOT Daenerys I)

I've already written an entire meta on how Dany's PoV is not entirely reliable and this is one of the instances. I imagine her thoughts on the matter changed because of this:

“A letter to Viserys, from Magister Illyrio. Robert Baratheon offers lands and lordships for your death, or your brother’s.”

“My brother?” Her sob was half a laugh. “He does not know yet, does he? The Usurper owes Drogo a lordship.” This time her laugh was half a sob. She hugged herself protectively. “And me, you said. Only me?”

“You and the child,” Ser Jorah said, grim.

“No. He cannot have my son.” She would not weep, she decided. She would not shiver with fear. The Usurper has woken the dragon now, she told herself ... (AGOT Daenerys VI)

It seems that Dany unconsciously and retroactively changed history in her mind after Robert tried to have her and her child assassinated (something that I forgot to talk about in my meta), which is quite interesting. I guess it's a detail that is easy to miss, so that's forgivable.

What's less excusable is the way that Benioff talks about Dany's mindset.

Benioff: I think in her mind this is just the price you pay for being Daenerys Targaryen, for being the last of the Targaryens, and it's not going to stop her. (x)

It's true that Dany is aware that she is the last of her family:

With Viserys gone, Daenerys was the last, the very last. She was the seed of kings and conquerors, and so too the child inside her. She must not forget. (AGOT Daenerys VI)

However, I look askance at the possible interpretation behind this statement. One could switch "Daenerys" for "Viserys" and it would be just as fitting. It's left ambiguous on its own, but, considering how he overfocuses on how "ambitious" she is or how she wants "more than anything" to "reclaim her birthright" or how "the only threat she poses is her name" until she frees the slaves in Astapor... I have to assume that he wants us to think that show!Dany is both arrogant and entitled for being a Targaryen. All of these mischaracterizations have been exhaustively refuted by @rainhadaenerys​ in this meta.

My comments on Anatomy of a Scene: Daenerys Meets the Unsullied

Weiss: Dany spent the first two seasons of the show leaning on men - her brother, Drogo, Jorah Mormont, Xaro Xhoan Daxos. She came out of season two realizing that the only person that she can completely trust is herself.

Benioff: Dany has her lovable side, but she is also ruthless, and she is also fiercely ambitious. What she wants, more than anything, is to return home and to reclaim her birthright.

Clarke: She needs the manpower to go back and conquer the Iron Throne and to be able to right the wrongs that she sees going on around her.

Minahan: She's been brought to Astapor, where she's reluctantly going to meet with slave traders. Her quest in this is to build an army without taking slaves.

Comments from Charlie Somers (location manager) and Christina Moore (supervising art director) that don't have anything to do with the storyline.

Benioff: The Unsullied were kidnapped as babies from their home countries and brought to Astapor and trained in the ways of the spear and castrated.

Emmanuel: They won't do anything without the command to do so first.

Comment from Tommy Dunne (weapons master) that doesn't have anything to do with the storyline.

Clarke: She's being introduced to the Unsullied by Kraznys, the slave master in control of them.

Emmanuel: Kraznys is being quite insulting to Daenerys. And Missandei very cleverly smoothes out her translation, just her initiative doing that shows her intelligence.

Clarke: Dany sees a lot of herself in her and can kind of see that it's a young girl who's capable of much more than the position she's in. She's his No 1 slave. If you were in the UN, she would be the translator for everyone.

Weiss: Kraznys speaks a version of Valyrian that's been bastardized and mixed with other local languages.

Comment from Majella Hurley (dialect coach) that doesn't have anything to do with the storyline.

Clarke: She's struggling with the moral aspect of the way that these cities are run. And it's something she's been grappling with because they are an army of slaves, which she fundamentally has moral issues with due to the fact that she herself was a slave.

Weiss: The only way she can make the world a better place is to become the biggest slaveowner in the world.

Benioff: She's put into a difficult position, and she's got her advisors whispering in her ears.

Glen: Jorah encourages her to get over her moral scrupules, with taking an army that were duty-bound to follow whatever leader it was, and that could change in an instant.

Benioff: Idealism is wonderful, but it's not gonna happen if you're idealistic, you gotta be a realist. She feels like she has this almost divine mission and nothing is gonna prevent her from achieving it.

Weiss: What she wants to do isn't just conquest for the sake of conquest, but it's really conquest for the sake of making the world a better place, and she's a revolutionary in that sense.

Benioff: For Daenerys to win, ultimately, she's gonna have to be just as ruthless as the others, and maybe even moreso.

My comments about their statements:

Clarke: She definitely understands Dany better than Benioff and maybe even Weiss. My only nitpick is that there's no No 1 slave for Kraznys ... In the books, he repeatedly whips Missandei and has no problem giving her away to Dany as a gift. Even in the show, he still constantly disrespects show!Missandei.

Weiss: I've already said this above and will repeat: Weiss is wrong when he says that "Dany spent the first two seasons of the show leaning on men". Or at least that's certainly not what the Dany of the books (i.e. the character show!Dany's should ideally be based on) does, as my posts here and here showcase how competent a leader she's becoming and how much agency GRRM gives her. His comment about how Dany wants to "become the biggest slaveowner in the world" to make it a better place is also distasteful (though I don't think he meant it as negatively as, say, Finn Jones), so here goes @rainhadaenerys​'s meta disproving the claim that Dany is a slaver. As for "conquest for the sake of making the world a better place", I kind of agree with this, but I've already showed above how it does a disservice to show!Dany's character development to paint it as if she's always been aware of these injustices, because the Dany of the books was not. In hindsight, that change makes me wary because I know they will later try to sell show!Dany as someone who is morally inflexible, which she never was in the books.

Benioff: I've already criticized his claims that Dany is "fiercely ambitious" and wants "more than anything" "to reclaim her birthright" in many moments of this meta. I also condemned his opinion that Dany needs to be a "realist" when I explained how the show overfocused on Jorah's point of view. As for his point that "she's gonna have to be just as ruthless as the others, and maybe even moreso" to win... Considering how they made her choose the more ruthless option in the end only to punish her in the most traumatizing manner for that very choice (which made no sense and was completely OOC, no less) ... Fuck him, seriously. It's clear how the show made it impossible for show!Dany to win based on contradictory standards that only viewed her unfavorably. If she is merciful, she is stupid. If she is ruthless, she is a danger that needs to be stopped to save humanity.

Show!Dany's clothes

This episode adapts events from three chapters (ACOK Daenerys V, ASOS Daenerys I, ASOS Daenerys II). The first is the only one with a detailed description of her clothes:

If the Milk Men thought her such a savage, she would dress the part for them. When she went to the stables, she wore faded sandsilk pants and woven grass sandals. Her small breasts moved freely beneath a painted Dothraki vest, and a curved dagger hung from her medallion belt. Jhiqui had braided her hair Dothraki-fashion, and fastened a silver bell to the end of the braid. (ACOK Daenerys V)

In ASOS Daenerys I, Dany is only described using a coverlet to hide her nudity when Jorah comes to talk to her. 

In ASOS Daenerys II, we don't know how Dany dressed when she went to meet with Kraznys, only that her garment had a sleeve.

In the series, we see show!Dany wearing this blue dress:

It's meant to pay homage to the Dothraki, so it's at least spiritually faithful to how Dany looks in the scene on the docks ... Well, more or less. Not only blue isn't a special color for the Dothraki despite what Michele Clapton might say, look at how Barristan reacts to seeing Dany for the first time:

“I regret if we caused you alarm. If truth be told, we were not certain, we expected someone more ... more ...”

“Regal?” Dany laughed. She had no dragon with her, and her raiment was hardly queenly. (ACOK Daenerys V)

This little scene displays both Dany's frugalness and how she doesn't take herself that seriously, for she doesn't mind if her subjects see her looking less than regal. That doesn't come across at all in the show, to the point of some people thinking that show!Dany never allows herself to look anything but perfect, which is certainly not true of the character she is based on.

[tarnishedxknight]

(meta topic) what are ashelia’s views on motherhood

{out of dalmasca} Oh gosh, Ashelia has a complex relationship with the whole idea of motherhood, heh. Alright, here we go...

Ashelia doesn't really have strong mothering instincts. It's not like she's mean to kids, or dislikes them, she's just not very inclined to want to take care of them on a regular basis. It's just not something she wants to do. If it was her choice, there's a good chance she might choose not to have children at all. Having said that, I think that might change if she fell in love with someone and had her own children or adopted. In other words, I don't think she'd want children simply for the sake of having them, but if she was in love with someone, she might want to have them with that person as part of making a family.

But, of course, that's if Ashelia was free to choose and in control of her own life, which, until after the age of 17, she was not. She was arranged to a childhood friend and married at 17. Had that marriage actually stood for more than a day, heh, and if Rasler and his father hadn't been killed, effectively ending House Nabradia, Ashelia would have not only been expected to become a member of their House and live with them in Nabradia, but she also would have been expected to begin having children as soon as possible. Both House Nabradia and House Dalmasca needed heirs. Their numbers were dwinding and the lineages of the Dynast Kings were in danger of extinction. Ashelia would have had absolutely no choice in the matter but to start having children... and to have a lot of them. Her own mother had nine children herself.

I think there is a little bit of a correlation between the fact that Ashelia felt she ad no choice in the matter and her aversion to having children. She felt forced into this role, and forced to marry a man despite being bisexual. A lot of her choice and agency was removed from her, and it wasn't like she didn't love Rasler, or that anything she was being told to do was necessarily something she didn't want to do, but I think she resented having her freedom of choice removed from her. I think it's telling, if we venture to take the storyboards of the scrapped game Fortress as canon, that ten years after the events of FFXII, at age 30, Ashelia is still unwed. That's... unheard of for a woman in her position.

At the end of FFXII, Ashelia is the last of her kind, the last of the Dynast King descendants. If she dies, that whole lineage dies with her. She's also an unwed newly coronated (or about to be soon) queen of a formerly patriarchal country that only had kings. She has no children, no siblings left alive, and no other reasonable person she could name as her heir. Her royal counsel would have been pressuring her hard to marry and start having children, not only to ensure that her blood remains on the throne, but to make sure her rare lineage doesn't die out. If she dies, no one else has any right to the Dalmascan throne at all. So with all of that immense pressure, for her to still be unwed and without children at age 30 is noteworthy. I think it speaks to just how much personal choice and freedom are important to her. She wants to marry for love, not just for political gain or to pass on her particular blood.

Going back to the issue of having children, Ashelia has more problems with it than just feeling forced into it. As I mentioned, her mother had nine children. To Ashelia... that's... that's a lot, heh. She could do maybe three or four, but childbirth even in her time/world with its advanced technology in some ways is still dangerous. Sure, there are healing magicks, but there's no guarantee. At least her mother didn't die in childbirth, so she has good genes, lol, but that's of little comfort to her. Beyond that, the idea of going through painful childbirth nine times, and of being pregnant for all that time, is unappealing to her. She doesn't want that to be her life, just... existing in a constant state of pregnancy, popping out one kid after another.

Yet another issue is the fact that, of the nine children her mother had, only one survived. All eight of her brothers were killed fighting in the war. Ashelia was young, but she was around to see her mother mourn the last two of her brothers, and it was something that always stuck with her. Even with the tentative peace that is declared at the end of the game, all Ashelia has ever known is loss and death from the war. I'm not sure she'd be so quick to trust that her own children wouldn't die fighting as well if something happened to destabilize the newfound peace in Ivalice. The thought of mourning that many children has her very scared. She's already lost brothers and both parents, so to start losing children too is something she doesn't want to do.

So there's a lot of fear and apprehension surrounding Ashelia and having children. I think it would take her falling in love with someone, choosing to have children with them, and then that moment of having her first child laid in her arms for her to finally find herself as a mother. At that point I think instinct would kick in as well as a fierce desire to protect her child. However, protecting the child would not mean sheltering them from the world as was done with her.

By the time Ashelia grew to adulthood, she'd been so sheltered as to barely see life outside the palace. She was forbidden from learning weapons in any real capacity and forbidden to join the military or to fight in the war as her brothers were. This was because Raminas did not want to lose his last child, both emotionally and because she was his final heir left alive. Sheltering her so much and denying her permission to study weapons and other things she wanted to left her at a disadvantage when the Archadians invaded. Had she not learned to use a longsword from Basch, she likely would have been killed. So as fearful as Ashelia would be of losing her own children, she would not shelter them as her father did with her. She believes children are stronger when they are permitted to make their own mistakes and given access to education, both physical and from books.

I think this about covers everything, but feel free to ask follow-up questions! =)

[theangrypokemaniac]

@nyarthsis

First of all, it's symbolic.

No reason was ever provided why Jessibelle looks so much like Jessie. It would've been simpler and more instinctive to invent an entirely new design. Instead, it was decided to turn them into identical strangers.

I can't see what purpose this serves other than to validate Rocketshipping. As his fiancée, Jessibelle is the romantic figure in his life. Whether he likes it or not, James is in a relationship with her, albeit a long distance one.

The intention is for he and she to be married, but the similarity between the girls invites viewers to picture Jessie in that role. It's hard not to, since the Jessibelle is simply Jessie from the upper class. Whatever way he turns, he's fated to fall in with a red head.

Bear in mind also that this idea has not sprung from thin air. Up to this episode, Jessie and James have often acted like a couple in all but name: rowing, hugging, holding hands and inseparable. People may have had an inkling beforehand but this confirms suspicions.

Remember James's parents too. Yes, they selected Jessibelle for him because she's wealthy and presumably from a good home, but they genuinely appear to have affection for her too, and want her to join the family.

Since James ran away it could be concluded that Jessibelle replaced him in their lives, explaining that relationship. Maybe in these circumstances she went from being just a suitable future wife to the daughter they never had, and like adoring parents, they can't see any wrong in her.

Plus, the reason James gives for leaving home was Jessibelle's demanding nature, asking he use the right spoon and do things a specific way.

To Ma and Pa, that's commendable behaviour: she's merely trying to mould their wayward son into a gentleman. That he won't accept instruction just shows him to be difficult.

Personally, I don't think what she asks is so bad. He's got a cosseted life, waited on every minute, due to inherit billions from parents who didn't walk out, and can really have anything he wants.

It's got to have some catch, if only to be fair to the rest of us. Yet having to conform to a set of exacting rules of etiquette isn't really so awful, especially when it's all you know, and everyone in your social circle follows them, as in they aren't expecting anything they wouldn't do.

Considering that James rejected these in favour of joining Team Rocket, whereas Jessibelle remained a law-abiding lady, it looks like she was right to try and curb his instincts, as see what he got up to when left to his own devices.

If all Ma and Pa cared about was money and background, they could've found anyone of that description for James, even an ugly bride, but they made a point of selecting a pretty, decorative candidate, suggesting they like her appearance too.

Add all this together, and it could be said that, whatever Jessie and James feel for one another, any happy ending is an impossibility The gulf in status is just insurmountable.

Ma and Pa would never welcome Jessie, a poor thief, who's led their son astray, over a refined example of femininity, polished and sophisticated, and certainly not when they love her.

Choosing Jessie means James may well be impoverished for the rest of his life, and he's known luxury, so going without it is more obvious than it is to her, who grew up deprived.

Jessie and Jessibelle are similar in personality too, except that the latter is not always violent. I don't believe her ladylike manners are an act, I think she really is like that most of the time. It might well be that the 'dominatrix' routine is a one-off, to punish James for abandoning her.

Jessibelle is actually quite a tranquil person. She never loses her temper, barely raises her voice, and remains calm and controlled throughout. As a wife, that may be what James can expect.

Jessie however is constantly on the edge, forever losing her temper and dispatching her fists. I don't blame her for that; it's how life has shaped her.

At worst, James will be beaten by Jessibelle, but has all that moolah as consolation. With Jessie, a beating is the norm, and he's poor and starving. It'd be understandable of it all got too much and he decided he's better off at home.

The resemblance between the girls smooths out many of these obstacles. If James refused to obey his parents, and presented them with his choice, who was the complete opposite of who they had in mind, it'd be too jarring to tolerate. They'll have spent years imaging what it'll be like to have Jessibelle in the family and her giving them grandchildren.

If it's Jessie, then it's easier for Ma and Pa to accept. She fits into their dynastic fantasies to the snug level that an outsider might not notice the difference, and maybe they'd occasionally forget it hadn't all gone to plan.

As they want heirs, James has to be intended to find Jessibelle attractive, so they can't say they don't know what he sees in Jessie.

Much of her inner rage is probably frustration over failure and general unhappiness. If that's alleviated, she'd be far more laid-back, and so not so unsuitable to high society. Ma could offer a little instruction then.

The second thing is the events leading to this situation. Yes, James couldn't cope with marrying Jessibelle, and so, when away from home at Pokémon Tech., he ran off.

Before this, he encountered Jessie, as in a girl the exact image of the one he wanted to escape.

That meeting is an accidental twist of fate, and can't be helped, but to James it must've been the universe conspiring against him. He'd have believed it was Jessibelle initially.

If he hated his fiancée to the depths of his soul, every bit of her, he ought to have run for the hills. How could you stomach being around someone that similar to all you'd gone to the trouble to avoid?

Instead, he not only befriended Jessie, but stays beside her from that day. He joins the Bike Gang with her, enters Team Rocket with her, and walks over the world with her.

Every single day he has a reminder of Jessibelle before him. He absconded, but she's inescapable, and he decided to make it that way.

Why would this be?

It's as if, whatever he says to the contrary, he does like Jessibelle. He wanted to leave her behind, but not her face, and found himself a replica.

Somehow, Jessibelle telling him what to do was unreasonable, but he wanted her, without that element of control. He then found Jessie, who not only orders him about, but hits him, yet that's alright, as long as he has a certain level of freedom.

If he's in Jessie's company every minute of the day, he can't resent her appearance. In turn, that implies he likes it, and so he must fancy Jessibelle. If that's so, he has to also be attracted to Jessie.

The funny thing is that Rocketshipping and Rumishipping aren't rival ships, they're two sides of the same thing. If you support one, you must accept the other, else yours can't exist.