#lemore

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Characters, book, and author names under the cut

Val Palafox/Cade McKenna - Venom and Vow by Anna-Marie & Elliott McLemore

Alex Price/Eli Rodriguez - Like Real People Do by E.L. Massey

Kiem Tegnar/Jainan nav Adessari - Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

Viola Carroll/Justin de Vere - A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall

[wyattabernathyus]

[yallemagne]

Lenore Posting

One of the most influential lines in vampire literature was in a poem that features no vampires: "Denn die Todten reiten schnell" from Lenore by Gottfried August Bürger.

For fun, I must first address that this phrase also appears in what is considered Bram Stoker's first draft of Dracula: Dracula's Guest.

Impelled by some sort of fascination, I approached the sepulchre to see what it was, and why such a thing stood alone in such a place. I walked around it, and read, over the Doric door, in German: COUNTESS DOLINGEN OF GRATZ IN STYRIA SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH 1801 On the top of the tomb, seemingly driven through the solid marble—for the structure was composed of a few vast blocks of stone—was a great iron spike or stake. On going to the back I saw, graven in great Russian letters: “The dead travel fast.”

Why it is in Russian when the engraving on the tomb is in German and why proto-Jonathan is able to read both languages when his first draft self knew not even a lick of German, I cannot say. What I can say is that Styria is a reference to Carmilla, of course, and we know from the engraving: "sought and found death" that the Countess likely committed suicide, which is often deemed a sin in Christianity that can condemn one to vampirism. Eternal life as punishment for seeking death against God's will. You could take this paired with the quote as a reference to Bürger's Ballad of Lenore, in which a grieving woman curses God for the death of her beloved and is punished with death... but it doesn't fit as well as it should. That bitch Dolingen ain't travelling nowhere.

Okay, okay, right to the book:

The parallels to Bürger's ballad start before the line is spoken. The driver drives dangerously fast, urged on by his other passengers, much to Jonathan's chagrin. How was it that Lenore was led to her death? A man resembling her beloved, Wilhelm, appeared on a horse and bid her to join him to go to their marriage bed. On the way, he rides wildly, distressing her. He inquires:

“What ails my love? the moon shines bright: Bravely the dead men ride through the night. Is my love afraid of the quiet dead?” “Ah! no;—let them sleep in their dusty bed!”

(By the way, here, "Denn die Todten reiten schnell" is translated as "Bravely the dead men ride through the night")

"You are early to-night, my friend." The man stammered in reply:— "The English Herr was in a hurry," to which the stranger replied:— "That is why, I suppose, you wished him to go on to Bukovina. You cannot deceive me, my friend; I know too much, and my horses are swift." As he spoke he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hard-looking mouth, with very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory. One of my companions whispered to another the line from Burger's "Lenore":— "Denn die Todten reiten schnell" — ("For the dead travel fast.")

Here, the reference is a better fit. Jonathan's fellow passenger makes the comment in reference to the stranger, who we know is the Count, being one of the dead, or rather, Un-Dead. He's travelling. Rather fast. As the dead do.

As the ballad goes on, "Wilhelm" invites a passing funeral procession to drop their mourning and sing him and his bride cheery marriage songs, which they do.

The driver and passengers (who could, in a way, be described as Jonathan's funeral procession), do not follow the Count, instead leaving for Bukovina, lamenting their failure to outpace the dead. But no matter, they are replaced by the wolves, whose singing is praised by the Count:

"Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!"

Now, Dracula isn't putting on the familiar face of Jonathan's dear Wilhelmina, but he does still come in disguise. And even when he introduces himself properly as Count Dracula, his hospitality is a façade to trap Jonathan and lead him to his doom.

[valyrianfreehold]

some adwd gals

[rosaluxembae]

Cooking up some contrarian theory like Jon Snow is a Secret Targaryen but only because Septa Lemore is his mother and also Shaena Targaryen.

[amuelia]

Death is creeping up my arm. No man must ever know, nor any wife. - The Griffin Reborn, AdwD

happy birthday @mylestoyne 🥰

pictured with jon connington: his mother, his father, rhaegar targaryen, ashara dayne, black balaq and harry strickland, myles toyne, young griff, septa lemore, tyrion lannister

[wodania]

pov: you are tasked with raising the son of the man you fell in love with in your youth. he is a freak, but that might actually be your fault.

happy pride guys

[adarkandmagicalforest]

they wouldve overpowered all with their tiktok edits

[agentrouka-blog]

Hi Rouka! What do we think about Septa Lemore actually being Ashara Dayne? I heard this theory recently and honestly while reading adwd, it struck me that Lemore could maybe be Ashara. Grrm does the whole omission isn’t lying thing so we get Tyrion not describing her purple eyes. Moreover, in the Jon Connington PoV, she talks to him like she has a say in Aegon’s life thereby implying that she is someone important to Aegon’s past. Although Tyrion, in his PoV, does describe her as more ‘handsome than beautiful’ and in her 40s where Ashara was described as strikingly beautiful and if she were alive she would be in her mid-late 30s. I know this all flimsy evidence for a doomed character either way, but to me it holds so much more literary weight that Lemore is Ashara.

Funnily enough, this concerns one of my most popular posts with various reblogs and expanded thoughts attached... (Warning, it's long.)

I am absolutely sold on the theory - with an additional twist.

I mean, let's be honest, also. Unlike with Lyanna and Elia, there is zero reason for GRRM to keep bringing her up at all if she is actually dead. But he does. And it's not because she's hanging around in the swamps of the Neck in Absolute Secrecy for absolutely no reason as Howland's secret wife. (Secret for absolutely no reason.)

Why would she go into hiding, unless she was actually, actively, hiding something - or someone? And that's not happening in the Neck. That was happening on the Rhoyne.

Additional irony: Arthur (loser) died trying to keep Ned from Lyanna and her newborn Targy son. His sister, much more successfully, is actually helping raise and protect Elia's son for many years now. Once again, the sisters are doing a better job.

[maid-with-sunset-in-her-hair]

I just realized that Septa Lemore was probably Aegon VI’s wetnurse, that’s why GRRM included the tidbit about her giving birth at some point in the past, because pregnancy is what triggers milk production under normal circunstances. So far in the series, two wetnurses participated in secret plots to protect royal babies, Willa helped hide Jon’s true identity and Gilly was forced to do a baby switch plot to save Aemon Steelsong from a pyromaniac king, so it would make sense if a wetnurse also participated in the plot to baby switch Aegon VI and then raise him under a fake identity.

[aegor-bamfsteel]

I know Septa Lemore will going to have some role in future but I really dislike how she was written to provide some titillation to Tyrion. Her AWOIAF main art is standing nude. It's like she has no problem with Tyrion.

I’m not really a fan of that either. I guess she was shown as titillating in the books despite allegedly being a septa to cast doubt on that. And for it to be confirmed she’d given birth before, she would’ve had to be naked so Tyrion could see her stomach’s stretch marks. However, we get a sharper side to her in JonCon’s POV, so there’s no reason why he couldn’t have been the one to tell us about the birth except to preserve the mystery. Also you’re right; Tyrion is at his most disgusting in ADWD and is in between threatening to kill a sex slave (at Illyrio’s) and raping another sex slave (in Volantis) when he meets Lemore, so that she’d be charmed by him is strange.

As for the main AWOIAF art (which seems to have been changed to the second one down), there’s no excuse for it. Even Tyrion says Lemore is 40ish and still handsome, whereas the art has her a much younger looking, flawless model type from the back. Why we couldn’t see her face, when she’s in her septa’s robes or even the merchant’s daughter disguise, is beyond me, but the artist seems prominent in the fandom and maybe even knows GRRM like some of the others (like Amoka). Still, just because Tyrion cares less about her mysterious past than her body doesn’t mean the readers have to as well.

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

Favourite Tyrion Pairing

I noticed that unfortunately Tyrion doesn't get as much attention as other popular characters when it comes to shipping. So I was wondering which is everyone's favourite pairing for him. Spread the love for our favourite witty man!

[tyrionsource]

Reminder that Tyrion's Seasons of Love (Part 2- Autumn) is on September 23! The Prompt for the event is: I loved a maid as red as autumn, with sunset in her hair Alt: I loved a lad as red as autumn, with sunset in his hair Alt: I loved someone as red as autumn, with sunset in their hair *You can use words from the line instead of the entire line if you prefer. For example, if you just want to use the word autumn or red, or sunset as your prompt. All ships are welcome! All types of fanworks are welcome! Please tag your posts #tyrionseasons so that your posts can be reblogged here! If you are writing fic, please post to the Tyrion’s Seasons of Love Collection on AO3. For more information on the series of events here is the original post. To check out the fanworks created for Part 1 of Tyrion's Seasons of Love, here is the Summer Masterlist.

[dyannawynnedayne]

Who Has The Most Gender?: Round 1

Jaime: art by jroahn, AWOIAF Page

Lemore: art by bidonicart, AWOIAF Page

BRACKET LINK

[gojuo]

What are your all time favorite characters from ASOIAF and F&B? 🙏

This answer is so unserious but my number one baby in ASOIAF is ELIA MARTELL!!!!!!! It's so unserious because all we know about her is literally one fucking line of being sweet and kind and clever and that's about it. She's already long dead before the story starts, but I really don't care. The way she is so loved by her brothers, by her nieces, her family, by her entire country, so much so that she is the reason why Dorne is even participating in this silly game of thrones... This deep-set love for her is made clear by how said love bleeds through the narrative all without the POVs of the people closest to her: Doran and Oberyn. It's so fascinating how cherished she is even though not a single POV character stops for a minute to think about her. Ned, Jaime, and Sansa are prime examples of POV characters that have, in some narrative way, a connection to Elia yet she's only a passing thought to them (not even so in Sansa's case). Yet it's so abundantly well-defined how loved and how important she was, even when we only have a maximum of 20 words written about her. It is deeply heartbreaking and compelling to me how this barely-there character, who has died long before the story starts, has this much of an impact on an entire kingdom. And you might be thinking right now, Melda, really? Elia’s worth to you is measured by how loved she was by others? Yeah, well, that's not the reason why I love her this much. I love her the most because she outplayed every single one of them all. She outplayed Tywin. She outplayed Aerys. She outplayed Robert and she did what Rhaegar could not do: she saved her son. She saw to it that the heir to the Iron Throne, her own baby, was whisked off to safety in the hands of her own best friend (Septa Lemore is 100% Ashara Dayne) all during a dynasty-ending continent-wide rebellion. Rhaegar destroyed his house. Aerys destroyed his house. Tywin and Robert put the nail in the coffin and believed they were building a new dynasty for the ages to come, but Elia still managed to outplay them all in the long-run. Her son is now coming back to put an end to the Baratheon/Lannister/Tyrell-dynasty and there will be no salvation for any of them. Elia won.

And that leads me to my second most favorite character in ASOIAF and that is YOUNG GRIFF aka AEGON THE SIXTH TARGARYEN!!!!!! MY BABY BOY DOOMED BY THE NARRATIVE HAUNTED BY THE NARRATIVE AND MOURNED BY THE NARRATIVE..... He will die but he will also forever be immortalized as Aegon the Sixth, The Last Targaryen King of Westeros, and no amount of Daenerys genocidal rage will ever change that. He will be loved by the people and he will be eternally mourned as the Last Targaryen. If only he hadn’t been under Varys’ care, if only he hadn’t been Rhaegar’s son, if only he hadn’t been meant for more… Then he could have embraced his mother’s Rhoynish/Dornish side fully and live in peace for the rest of his life, together with the last of his family. He really could have, but he was meant for much more. He was doomed the day he was conceived when that red star bled through the skies and foretold Rhaegar’s prophecy. Aegon never stood a chance against that. If only he still had his mother with him. Aegon is Elia’s living legacy. He is alive today because of her. She almost died giving birth to him, and then she died protecting him. He never mentions her, but what child doesn’t long for his mother? Her touch is all over him—from within her body he first took shape in, to her life-long best friend who took care of him, to her countrymen accompanying him, to her niece who he will marry, to her brother’s, his uncle, support of him—his mother is in everything surrounding him. The woman that saved him. His name is Aegon Targaryen but more than anything he is Elia s son. And Elia has been all but erased from history yet here her son comes back, not to just bring justice, not to just take back the throne, but to put it down in the history books that he was here, that he is alive, that his mother saved him, that his mother mattered. And he will die, he will, because this is not his Song, because after everything still he is a Targaryen, but he will die and he will forever be remembered as The Last Targaryen King of Westeros, Son of Elia.

Now this character was Mother to me long before I even knew what the fuck Mother was. She was everything to me in the first three books and she will always be one of my most favorite characters of all time: CATELYN STARK. Literally no words to describe how much she meant to me when I first read ASOIAF at my big age of 12 years old. I can’t even explain exactly what she means to me. It just immediately clicked, you know? It shocked me to find out the community vehemently hated her because Catelyn was nothing but sympathetic to me. I understood why she took her anger and humiliation out on Jon. I understood that this was not something to be celebrated but that this was something so very human, something so awful yet so true to reality. I just understood, you know? Her shame, her humiliation, her embarrassment, her outrage, her upset—I understood it all. And I loved her through it all. People like to pretend they would do better were they in her shoes, but that is a lie and everyone knows it. The pain she had to live through everyday put her between a rock and a hard place and the majority of people have the privilege of never having been put in that position. But the people who know, know. And the people who don’t know, will never know. But I knew. I did. I still do. She was so human to me. Like a real person. She wasn’t a made-up character to me, she wasn’t fictional, it was as if she was a person that was a part of my life back in the real world, outside of ASOIAF. I can’t even articulate exactly how, what, why and who she is to me. Just, as a person who existed in this world, who took up space, who was a mother, a daughter, a sister, just a person who lived… Catelyn Stark was everything to me in those first 3 books. Everything. Not a single character and their struggle and plotline had captivated me in the way hers had captivated me. I just can’t explain it. When she died it was like ASOIAF was over for me, like it didn’t matter anymore, I was done with it. Reading her death, experiencing it alongside her… Man, something in me changed, I swear. It was over, in every sense of the way. When Catelyn died, ASOIAF died…

… and then in the next book GRRM introduced to us ARIANNE MARTELL. I gave you 3 paragraphs of melancholy but that’s not gonna be the case for Arianne. Because she is the It Girl, she is an Icon, she is a Legend and she is The Moment. She’s going to win. She’ll have a lil detour of being Queen of the Seven Kingdoms but after that little stint she’ll go back to where she has always wanted to be: Ruler of Dorne. And she will continue to slay as she has been doing since those 2 little chapters in AFFC dropped until the end of time. MY QUEEN. Literally if she (and Oberyn and the Martells in general) hadn’t been introduced after Cat died I would have shelved ASOIAF for the rest of my life. But then Arianne came, she saw and she conquered my all and I’m still here. No sad little mournful lamentation on her character here like the rest because Arianne Martell is going to win. QUEEN.

Sunfyre. That’s my fuckin BABY!