#i'm not saying joff-free you can't make me

[imperatorcaesaraugustus]

the Ds are Hot. the mind has thoughts. ThoughtD: thoughts on HotD is back again for another week. House of the Dragon season 2 episode 6, here we go

they've added Storms End and Rooks Rest to the opening tapestry, that's nice. i like that

Triarchy mentioned! (for those who did not read F&B, the Triarchy is a union between the free cities of Tyrosh, Lys, and Myr that existed at this time)

man, Aemond sucks. i can't wait for all his plans to fall apart around him

you'd think someone with such mommy issues would be just a little more willing to listen to his mother's opinion

i like the choice of Darklyn as the guy who secretly has Targaryen ancestry. the marriage in question is enough generations back to have been before the conquest, a time when we don't have a very detailed Targaryen family tree, and the Darklyns are close enough to Dragonstone that a marriage back when the Targaryens were just a regional power makes sense

it makes sense that, if they were getting people back for Daemon's visions, they'd get Paddy Constantine

"did you say it" i like that, at least in this one thing, they're leaning into the ambiguity of F&B

oh my god Daemon is loosing his mind

i quite like Alys Rivers as a character

can't believe Seasmoke let this man think he was gonna ride him. what a scamp

and now that the search for dragonriders is stalling, here's Addam and Alyn of Hull!

and now that the search for dragonriders is stalling, here's Ulf the White!

if only Aemond knew what his one and only sex worker was saying about him

YES RHAENYRA SLAP THAT MAN

"it suits you" is it just me or is there, like, a sapphic vibe coming from Mysaria this episode?

damn, Larys really thinks he's smooth. "you need a hand. someone... shrewd" yeah alright my guy

they're still not shy about showing us Aegon's wounds, huh?

Aemond! get away from him! he did nothing wrong did many things wrong but he doesn't deserve this!

love Rhaena talking with little Joff. adorable

that's an enormous burn. how did they not notice that earlier?

it has become very clear now that they are, in fact, giving Nettles' plot line to Rhaena. i am incredibly disappointed by this

Alyn* of Hull is pulling an Egg, shaving his head so his Valyrian hair isn't obvious

Mysaria's plan was... a canoe full of produce? what?

MANY produce canoes??

there is war in the reach. will we see the war in the reach? will we see a certain boy riding his beautiful blue dragon in the war in the reach?

DAERON MENTION

we're learning a lot about Daeron this episode. we would learn even more if we ever got to see him no i will not let this go

and now that the search for dragonriders is stalling, here's Hugh the Hammer!

produce canoe riots

this is the second time this season Helaena has gone into town with her mom and had a horrible time. when will it end?

Mysaria lingering there with the Queen, overlooking the sea. i'm once again sensing sapphic vibes? am i just reading into this?

look Larys I can appreciate you sharing your experience with disability with the permanently injured king but for god's sake man, let him have his painkillers

the path to redemption lies through hallucinations of your dead brother grieving his wife

guys, i don't think Daemon's doing okay

"fine, i'll do it myself" - Seasmoke, on being provided with potential new riders

Mysaria tragic backstory unlocked and, uh, holy fuck

guys am i just imagining these sapphic vibes NO APPARENTLY I WAS NOT IMAGINING. this woman already fucked Daemon and now she's going for Rhaenyra, what a legend

once again, loved this episode, loving this season, see y'all next week

*edited because i cannot for the life of me remember which one is Addam and which one is Alyn (Addam is the dragonrider)

[ladystoneboobs]

While I agree with points of your post that Sansa wasn't necessarily closer to Robb than Jon, that she still wasn't an outsider because of it, that her most positive and underappreciated sibling relationship is Bran (and while you didn't cover her in the post, Sansa is much closer to Jeyne Poole and its notable that aside from her siblings, Jeyne is one of the few people Sansa misses/thinks about when she's not repressing shit) I DO think you were being slightly unfair to try and cast Sansa and Robb's relationship in a negative light, and if that wasn't your intention, then I'm sorry for misreading.

- First off, regarding Robb's reaction to the letter I always saw that as a damnation of Robb being only 15 yo and being thrust into a leader position, rather than his relationship with Sansa. It's meant to highlight his immaturity more than anything else. Maybe it would hold more weight if we saw Robb continue to hold the view that Sansa wrote the letter of her own free will, but we don't because we see him accept Catelyn's explanation

- I'm not pulling out quotes for this because I don't want to make this too long but when Robb meets up with Catelyn again and their discussing Sansa being held captive by the Lannister, Robb is visibly upset when he asks Catelyn if they lose, the Lannisters will hurt Ned and Sansa

- Robb makes it very clear from the beginning that the trade applied to both Sansa and Arya, so while I do think it serves as commentary on how political importance of girls are viewed in a patriarchal system, I don't think grrm was trying to imply that Robb didn't love his sisters. I think it's obvious that he made decisions without always their best interests in mind, I don't think George was trying to imply he didn't love them

- If we consider how Catelyn tells Robb that Grey W is "a part of him", then the reaction of Grey W (along with Summer and Shaggydogs) to Lady's bones being returned home is pretty telling

um, when did i ever say robb didn't love her at all or even give a shit about what happened to her? jon loves sansa dutifully too and cared about her loss of lady, even though she was probably his least favorite sibling. and arya and sansa love each other deep down, despite all their fights and the fact that they're probably each other's least favorite siblings. in a family of six siblings, there's going to be favorites and less-than-favorites and some kids closer and friendlier to some than others. but the starklings are not the greyjoy brothers, or the baratheon brothers, or cersei/tyrion. only those very biased against one of the starks (usually sansa or arya) would deny there's love for all of them. that's not how i feel. i think robb and sansa just weren't all that close and friendly, he had nothing against her but didn't really think of her much either, which can be its own problem.

as far as the letter, it's not that robb wanted to blame her or continued to blame her after learning better bc of some unsaid grudge or bias, no. however, imo, there's a difference between "what's wrong with the girl?" and say, "why would sansa write this?" both speak of shock but one is more shocked at the contents about ned and lack of word about arya, not sansa's loyalty to joff after ned's arrest and ordering robb/cat to come bend the knee to him. to me, it reads as a rhetorical question taking for granted that there is something wrong with sansa. agot!robb the boy lord is a bit dense and still immature at times (too much so at times for me to buy his transformation to military prodigy as totally consistent but that early installment weirdness is another topic), but if his relationship with sansa was as good and sweet as fandom likes to imagine, i think he'd have to be pretty dense indeed to just turn on her without (non-rhetorical) question and believe she fully came up with every word of cersei's herself even before it was explained to him.

as for not trading jaime for sansa/arya, i already said i can't really blame him. that's the feudal patriarchy for ya, and we know pissing off his bannermen wouldn't go well for his cause bc we see it happen later. (even catelyn can't fully disagree until her despair after bran/rickon's presumed deaths.) so no argument there. tho i do get a bit annoyed about how blase he is about waiting to free his sister(s). that reunion scene with cat is the only time we see him express worry about sansa and then it's like his concern disappears after being reassured that the lannisters can't just murder her unless they defeat him first. when he speaks of the possibility of karstark killing jaime in catelyn i acok, he just says it would be a death well deserved, and cat has to remind him of the obvious consequences jaime's murder would bring. it's not that he doesn't care if sansa dies, or that he's too stupid to be aware that killing jaime is a big no-no after he himself first forbid it at the end of agot, it's just that he is not thinking of sansa much at all by that time. he's more consumed with his own vengeful feelings toward house lannister than thoughts about sansa as their captive, and what that means for her even if cersei doesn't want her dead. (generally idt a robb pov was needed as his perspective wouldn't be too unique when we already had ned and jon, but the one thing i would want is his inner thoughts about sansa's plight if/when he did think of her.)

on the wolves, they are a part of their respective humans, but they are autonomous creatures too who are siblings themselves and always have the bond of their pack. even bran wasn't really warging that early on, so shaggy, summer, and grey wind howling was likely the wolves themselves mourning their dead sister, an even greater loss than a living human sister losing her wolf. you can interpret it how you like ofc, and again i am not denying that robb loved all his siblings and would have felt bad for both girls' losses at the trident when he first learned about all that.

i'm sorry if the start of this sounds snippy or defensive bc i was half-expecting pushback. idk maybe i shoudn't have tagged the post with robb's name but these are just my personal thoughts and opinions. and the original post turned into a ramble about robb and bran and rickon based on fanon stuff i've seen for robb/sansa and rickon/anyone where say, a completely fanon quote will be used alongside canon quotes for other sibling pairs. but i was also trying to be vague to avoid feeling rude. i don't dislike robb! i would think the rest of my robb tag with content of robb/catelyn, robb/bran, robb/jon, robb/jeyne w. etc would be proof of that. (and i recognize you have no way of being sure of this, but i am well aware of all catelyn/robb scenes.)