#text from loyalannister

[loyalannister]

UNDER THE LENS : Daenerys I, A Game of Thrones

The first perspective of Daenerys Targaryen opens in Magister Illyrio's manse at Pentos, where we meet the last scions of House Targaryen and get a glimpse of the contrasting traits, dreams and ambitions of the two siblings even as the chapter ends with a step forward in the narrative of the future mother of dragons.

• Probably no PoV other than her very first one does a better job of showing us exactly what Dany really wants - momentarily and for her future:

Dany could hear [...] the shouts of ragged children playing games beyond the walls of the estate. For a moment she wished she could be out there with them, barefoot and breathless and dressed in tatters, with no past and no future...

The text explicitly says that the Iron Throne & the lost glory of the Targaryens was something exclusive to Viserys' desire - not his sister's:

Viserys lived for that day.

It's absurd to claim that Daenerys would have rejected an opportunity to return to Westeros & reclaim the prosperity of her house at this point in the narrative but Martin does sharply contrast Viserys' desire with that of his sister's in the very next sentence :

All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

• The house with the red door looms large on Dany's innermost desires not only in A Game of Thrones but in her journey throughout the series. There have been various speculations on this house and its location, even some theorizing that it exists only as a figment of her imagination. But Daenerys recalls her emotions surrounding the red door with sharp clarity :

After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

Of course, one might argue that Daenerys was younger and she might not be recalling certain things correctly. But that begs the question - which parts of her childhood memories are trustworthy & which parts are not?

• One thing which captured my attention early on in the chapter was the fact that Daenerys is far more observant, intuitive & wary of everything offered to her compared to her older brother :

“Why does he give us so much?” she asked. “What does he want from us?” For nigh on half a year, they had lived in the magister’s house, eating his food, pampered by his servants. Dany was thirteen, old enough to know that such gifts seldom come without their price, here in the free city of Pentos.

Dany is right to be wary of Illyrio though, She even thinks back to the words spoken of Illyrio in the streets - 'he’d never had a friend he wouldn’t cheerfully sell for the right price.' When Illyrio assures Viserys that the common people of Westeros are sewing dragon banners & awaiting his return, she knows better than to hang on to his every word:

Dany had no agents, no way of knowing what anyone was doing or thinking across the narrow sea, but she mistrusted Illyrio’s sweet words as she mistrusted everything about Illyrio.

When Viserys vows to kill powerful people like Jaime Lannister and Robert Baratheon, Daenerys is quick to note Illyrio's reaction, which her brother misses:

Dany saw the smallest hint of a smile playing around his full lips, but her brother did not notice.

• As much as Viserys is and should be criticized by the readers for his abusive behavior, this chapter lays out the psychological basis for his behavior and makes me feel somewhat sympathetic for him. Viserys is essentially stuck in the past even though the events occuring around his escape from Westeros has long transpired:

Nodding, he pushed back a curtain and stared off into the night, and Dany knew he was fighting the Battle of the Trident once again.

He is desperate to reclaim the glory and power of House Targaryen (which is essentially why he arranges Dany's match with Drogo):

“We will have it all back someday, sweet sister,” he would promise her. Sometimes his hands shook when he talked about it. “The jewels and the silks, Dragonstone and King’s Landing, the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms, all they have taken from us, we will have it back.”

Though he spins his own 'web of dreams', Viserys is not as confident as he might appear at first glance - his resolution wavers at times & he looks for reassurance from Illyrio to validate his desires and plans:

“The realm will rise for its rightful king. [...] And the smallfolk will be with us. They cry out for their king.” He looked at Illyrio anxiously. “They do, don’t they?”

• Daenerys shares a number of parallels with Tyrion Lannister (widely believed to be one of the three heads of the dragon with good reason). This sentence, in particular, sharply reminded me of the dynamic between Tyrion and Cersei:

Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her.

Much like Viserys did to Daenerys, Cersei too has physically abused Tyrion (on more than one occasion, I dare say)

• This PoV introduces us to slaves for the first time in the series. Daenerys is astute enough to note that :

Illyrio’s servants entered, bowed, and set about their business. They were slaves, a gift from one of the magister’s many Dothraki friends. There was no slavery in the free city of Pentos. Nonetheless, they were slaves.

These are the servants (or rather slaves) who inform Dany of the many slaves working under Khal Drogo :

“Drogo is so rich that even his slaves wear golden collars...”

What many people seem to forget along the line is that Dany did not randomly take pity on slaves along her journey and decide to free them. Her revolution to end this horrible tradition stems from her own experience : she was essentially sold as a slave to Drogo. Even in her very first PoV, she is made to wear a collar before meeting Drogo - a very fancy collar but a collar nonetheless:

Last of all came the collar, a heavy golden torc emblazoned with ancient Valyrian glyphs.

• Obviously the Targaryens are not fireproof but they are resistant to heat to some extent. Will this come in useful for Daenerys in the future?

The water was scalding hot, but Daenerys did not flinch or cry out. She liked the heat. It made her feel clean.

• It's interesting that Viserys refers to Khal Drogo as 'Aegon the Dragonlord come again', while later on Tyrion Lannister refers to Daenerys herself as 'Aegon the Conqueror with teats'.

(I think it's high time antis stop denying that if Daenerys is to be compared to any of her forebears, it's Aegon the Conqueror, NOT Aerys the Mad King and if she is to be compared to any of her brothers, it's Rhaegar, NOT Viserys. Martin does a really good job of pointing out these comparisons throughout the series)

TRIVIA :

• Daenerys meets the Unsullied for the first time in her very first PoV.

• Magister Illyrio possesses a menagerie (which boasts of a panther among other animals).

[loyalannister]

UNDER THE LENS : Eddard I, A Game of Thrones

Eddard I, A Game of Thrones, starts with the arrival of King Robert Baratheon and his retinue to Winterfell and ends in the crypts where the dead Lords of the castle stare with disapproving eyes as Robert asks Ned Stark to be his Hand.

• Tyrion is present in the King's party and not lingering in a brothel when we see him for the first time in the series. Tyrion is in the Winterfell library when we first see him in his own PoV. Book! Tyrion does frequent brothels often but it speaks volumes about what the author wanted the reader's first impression of Tyrion to be in contrast to how the writers of Thrones wanted to present Tyrion to the viewers for the first time.

• I know that this excerpt is often considered as foreshadowing for Jon Snow becoming King:

Ned jested [...] “Kings are a rare sight in the north.”

Robert snorted. “More likely they were hiding under the snow. Snow, Ned!”

But also it's ironic that Ned says Kings are a rare sight in the North when his own son Robb will soon be declared King in the North although Ned himself wouldn't be alive to see it :(

• This PoV is rich in imagery/references to the dead Starks, the crypts, the Others but also it provides hope : hope that the Starks will eventually triumph against against all odds :

“The Others take your mild snows,” Robert swore. “What will this place be like in winter? I shudder to think.”

“The winters are hard,” Ned admitted. “But the Starks will endure. We always have.”

Unbeknownst to Robert, his words will come true - the Others will take away the mild snows and bring a much harsher & fiercer winter which the readers will shudder to read about in A Dream of Spring.

Later when Ned tells Robert to return to the castle from the crypts as his wife would surely be waiting, Robert says, “The Others take my wife,” - will this come true as well? (This actually reminds me of a favorite personal theory of mine which I was lowkey hoping to see in the show - Jaime would kill Cersei after being converted to a wight, thereby fulfilling the prophecy of the valonqar making it seem less like a heroic deed on Jaime's part and more like a gruesome one!)

• George does an excellent job of giving the crypts of Winterfell a very horror filled mystical vibe in this PoV - the crypts are almost personified in every other line starting from the very stairs leading down to them :

He could feel the chill coming up the stairs, a cold breath from deep within the earth.

[...]

He swept the lantern in a wide semicircle. Shadows moved and lurched.

The stone statues in the crypts seem to come alive eerily as the light from Ned's lantern illuminate them:

The shifting shadows made the stone figures seem to stir as the living passed by.

When Robert laughs uproariously at a joke, his laughter echoes through the darkness and :

[...] all around them the dead of Winterfell seemed to watch with cold and disapproving eyes.

In fact, George chooses to end the chapter on a very ominous note, as if the inhabitants of the crypt know the fate of Ned if he fulfils Robert's wish to be his Hand:

He looked at the stone figures all around them, breathed deep in the chill silence of the crypt. He could feel the eyes of the dead. They were all listening, he knew. And winter was coming.

• Jon Snow's parentage has long been a subject of discussion and debate in the fandom. Although it's widely believed that he is Rhaegar's son, other theories claim that he is Ned and Ashara's son.

Robert Baratheon had always been a man of huge appetites, a man who knew how to take his pleasures. That was not a charge anyone could lay at the door of Eddard Stark.

If Ned had really been with Ashara and birthed Jon as a bastard, it's unlikely that he would think along these lines. Although the events occuring at the Tower of Joy unfold later as a part of Ned's fever dream, in this PoV, he distinctly recalls Lyanna in his full senses beseeching him to promise her something (it might not be about a son, some might argue, but then what is the 'promise' all about? It definitely seems like a dead end if it's not about Jon.)

• Aside from their beauty and wildness, one Arya/Lyanna parallel I always really liked was when Arya searched for some purple and green flowers & brought them to Ned while they were crossing the Neck on their way to King's Landing. This would have undoubtedly reminded Ned of Lyanna:

“I bring her flowers when I can,” he said. “Lyanna was…fond of flowers.”

• The long dead lords of Winterfell are associated with further ominous symbolism:

By ancient custom an iron longsword had been laid across the lap of each who had been Lord of Winterfell, to keep the vengeful spirits in their crypts. The oldest had long ago rusted away to nothing, leaving only a few red stains where the metal had rested on stone. Ned wondered if that meant those ghosts were free to roam the castle now.

Not only would the iron longswords keep the dead Lords at bay, they would protect any possible people hiding in the crypts from the Others as well! As Old Nan puts it:

“They [the Others] were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun...”

Interestingly, some swords are missing from the stone statues currently as they were taken by Bran and his companions while fleeing from the ruined castle.

• Early on in the series, it becomes evident that Rhaegar did not rape Lyanna; Ned doesn't harbour any ill thoughts about Rhaegar when Robert speaks about him. Furthermore, he remains silent & his inner monologue provides no ill feelings about the silver prince :

“In my dreams, I kill him every night,” Robert admitted. “A thousand deaths will still be less than he deserves.”

There was nothing Ned could say to that.

• Rhaegar's rubies are brought up time and again in the series with various people actively seeking them out:

When Ned had finally come on the scene, Rhaegar lay dead in the stream, while men of both armies scrabbled in the swirling waters for rubies knocked free of his armor.

Arya and Mycah later team up to look for Rhaegar's rubies on the ford and later in A Feast for Crows, the Elder Brother informs Brienne that six rubies have been washed up with the water. Might these rubies have any significance in the future? Can they be used as a glamour by someone to appear as Rhaegar?

• The Starks belong to Winterfell and Winterfell belongs to the Starks:

For a moment Eddard Stark was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. This was his place, here in the north.

This is why, I feel extremely skeptical whenever I hear of King Bran endgame in the books. Bran is a Stark through and through, he is connected to Winterfell & the North like no one else. All signs point to him being King in the North rather than of entire Westeros. This is also why Sansa as Lady of the Vale in the end seems unlikely unless she marries someone from the Vale, given that Sansa herself has no claim to the Vale.

TRIVIA :

• Cersei Lannister rode to Winterfell in a wheelhouse pulled by forty (40) horses. It was too wide to pass through the gates of Winterfell.

• King Robert brought fruits from Highgarden for Ned to taste.

[loyalannister]

Jon Snow // Theon Greyjoy

Both Jon Snow and Theon Greyjoy consider themselves as outsiders to the close-knit Stark stronghold of Winterfell. Both feel unwelcome to a large extent : Jon because of his social status as a bastard and Catelyn's less than warm reception—

It was not Lord Eddard's face he saw floating before him, though; it was Lady Catelyn's... She was looking at him the way she used to look at him at Winterfell, whenever he had bested Robb at swords or sums or most anything. Who are you? that look had always seemed to say. This is not your place. Why are you here?

(~ Jon XII, A Dance with Dragons)

—while Theon's status is essentially that of a hostage, one who struggles to find and establish his identity.

This was never my home. I was a hostage here. Lord Stark had not treated him cruelly, but the long steel shadow of his greatsword had always been between them. He was kind to me, but never warm. He knew that one day he might need to put me to death.

(~ The Prince of Winterfell, A Dance with Dragons)

•••

Both find themselves as turncloaks at various points in time - ironically Jon is considered a turncloak for allying with the wildlings (under Qhorin Halfhand's orders), while Theon is considered one because he actively broke Robb's trust and betrayed him.

If Jon was remembered at all, it would be as a turncloak, an oathbreaker, and a murderer.

(~Jon X, A Storm of Swords)

//

“If you have no smile for me, tell me how you captured Winterfell. Abel will put it in a song, and you will live forever.”

“As a betrayer. As Theon Turncloak.”

(~The Turncloak, A Dance with Dragons)

•••

Both Theon & Jon see Bran’s face in weirwood trees. Interestingly, in case of Jon, it is through Ghost’s eyes that he sees Bran & in fact, this happens in A Clash of Kings, LONG BEFORE Bran even crossed the Wall & began training under Bloodraven:

Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother's face. Had his brother always had three eyes?

Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow.

(~ Jon VII, A Clash of Kings)

//

And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran's face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad.

(~ A Ghost in Winterfell, A Dance with Dragons)

•••

Both find themselves at home among ruins. Winterfell is obviously a blackened ruin after Ramsay burns it down while Castle Black is in a highly deplorable condition, weakened all the more after the wildling attack:

My seat, Jon Snow reflected. My hall, my home, my command. A ruin.

(~Jon VI, A Dance with Dragons)

//

The nearest thing to a home that remained to him was here, amongst the bones of Winterfell. A ruined man, a ruined castle. This is my place.  

(~ The Turncloak, A Dance with Dragons)

•••

Both Theon & Jon find themselves as the last resort for two women escaping from their doom:

“I did not know where else to turn but to the last son of Eddard Stark... You are my only hope, Lord Snow. In your father’s name, I beg you. Protect me.”

(~ Alys Karstark to Jon, Jon IX, A Dance with Dragons)

//

“Help me. Please.” She clutched at him.“I used to watch you in the yard, playing with your swords.”

(~Jeyne Poole to Theon, The Prince of Winterfell, A Dance with Dragons)

•••

Neither of them fear death and are determined to perish fighting when they die:

Jon was not afraid of death, but he did not want to die like that, trussed and bound and beheaded like a common brigand. If he must perish, let it be with a sword in his hand, fighting his father's killers. He was no true Stark, had never been one… but he could die like one. Let them say that Eddard Stark had fathered four sons, not three.

(~ Jon IX, A Game of Thrones)

//

Theon was not afraid to die... He fell to his knees. "A sword, that's all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek." Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. 

(~ A Ghost in Winterfell, A Dance with Dragons)

•••

Theon effectively acts as Lord of Winterfell in the very short period of time he captures Winterfell from Bran. Martin even gives him the epithet of 'The Prince of Winterfell' in one of his PoVs in A Dance with Dragons.

Jon is highly likely to have been declared as King in the North by Robb in his will, although everyone largely remains ignorant of the fact.

Both find themselves in position of power held by Robb once. Theon found little peace while he was lord & it's highly unlikely that a revived Jon would find solace either as King in the North.

[loyalannister]

Can we talk about the fact that the rest of Westeros is either unaware or can't be bothered about the fact that there is a moving castle in their continent!!

[loyalannister]

The way George brings up Arya in almost every other mention of Winds lately really gladdens my heart :)

I have seen both fans & antis being skeptical of Arya's future arc, given that Martin often brings up Arya in Braavos & how comfortable Arya is with blending in her successive identities, even leading many to believe that Arya may not return to Westeros & become a Faceless Man. However, if that had been the case, George would not have her hide Needle while sacrificing the rest of her belongings, he would not have her keep on dreaming wolf dreams even as late as 'Mercy'.

ASoIaF Arya may not have as huge a fanbase as some of the other characters, she may have been treated in that mummer's farce of an adaptation as a secondary disposable character in the shadows , brought in the limelight only for some "badass" & shallow "yass queen" moments, the fandom may be rife with misinterpretations of her character and journey, important quotes and parts of the storyline hinging on her identity may have been given to another character but none of that matters in the end...

...because we know that fans of Arya Stark have been validated by the person who created that character himself, not only in his blogs & interviews, but in the source material itself, right from the very first page she appears in, we know that George R R Martin will give the character her resolution she deserves keeping in mind her present narrative importance. After all, she is beloved by the author himself :)

You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you."

Come back home, Arya. A Starkless Winterfell and the North awaits the return of Valiant Ned's precious little girl.

[loyalannister]

Lol imagine hating a fictional character so much that while other people are spending an extensive pandemic-induced lockdown either doing nothing or just relaxing or focusing on their hobbies you hyperfixate on said character, coming up with a book focusing on her flaws & writing lengthy paragraphs comparing her to a racist xenophobic real world authority figure. Are you trying to open other people's eyes or is it yourself you are trying really hard to convince, dear?

Anyways, I feel really sad for her, someone please send her a number of a therapist. Sounds like she really needs one:(

[loyalannister]

Oh for God's sake, stop comparing the Witcher to GoT. They are totally different concepts. The Witcher is strictly a fantasy show where almost all the chief characters have magical/fighting abilities & let's face it, GoT at the end was only a bad political drama in the guise of a 'fantasy show'.

What the Witcher does first & foremost is focus the importance on the STORY even though they could have easily chosen to fill the screen left & right with stunning CGI as it's world is heavily infused with magic. Both the cast & the writers have taken a considerable amount of effort to understand the source material & it shows!

The show is very heavy in dialogues which actually do a lot of the worldbuilding. Both male & female characters take actions, shift the plot, have agency & spend very little time arranging chairs, walking around aimlessly or staring off into the distance. Another thing worth commenting on is that the characters, despite being incredibly magical & powerful, do NOT have thick plot armour. The main characters obviously don't die but they suffer injuries with long lasting consequences. There is NO deus-ex-machina to save beloved characters at the last minute. If you are a fan of the fantasy genre, the Witcher is a must-see!!

[loyalannister]

“I’m not a wolf, no matter what they call me.”- Robb to Catelyn, A Storm of Swords

The taste of hot blood filled Jon’s mouth, and he knew that Ghost had killed that night. No, he thought. I am a man, not a wolf. He rubbed his mouth with the back of a gloved hand and spat. ~ Jon, A Dance with Dragons

“It’s your anger, Bran,” her brother said. “Your fear.” "It isn’t. I’m not a wolf.” ~ Bran, A Clash of Kings

The denial is strong in these boys🐺

[loyalannister]

The purest scene in asoiaf for me will always be Sansa building the snow castle in the Eyrie. It's not just the imagery of a little girl building a snow castle (which in itself undeniably has a beauty of its own) but just the way George sets the atmosphere there : 'the flakes drifted down as soft and silent as memory' ... 'dawn stole into her garden like a thief' - the way Sansa embraces the snow like a long-lost love : 'drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses' ... 'she could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. the taste of innocence. the taste of dreams.' ... the way it brings back a rush of memories to her of not only the climate of the North but also of the way she used to play with Bran & Arya in the snow... the way her construction of the castle is described ...'the snow fell and the castle rose'... signifying that Winterfell will emerge only stronger even in the face of the fiercest weather... peak poetic imagery & symbolism. Seriously it becomes difficult to determine if George is writing poetry or prose. And this entire scene is not without a purpose for Sansa arrives at the realization that she is 'stronger within the walls of Winterfell' & gathers up the courage to confront Littlefinger about bringing her to the Vale when instead he had promised to take her home.

To top it off all, after Sansa's castle is destroyed by Sweetrobin's 'giant' doll, the man whose family sigil is the giant Titan of Braavos may have unknowingly made a prophetic statement about his fate : “If the tales be true, that’s not the first giant to end up with his head on Winterfell’s walls.”

This chapter really is rich in imagery, symbolism & action, isn't it?

[loyalannister]

Antis : Daenerys Targaryen is the villain in asoiaf. Read the books carefully. All the clues are there!

Euron Greyjoy :

[loyalannister]

Daenerys' ultimate destination : Beyond the Wall?

As we all know, Daenerys will be the Stallion that mounts the World. Her vision in the House of the Undying suggests as much:

Beneath the Mother of Mountains, a line of naked crones crept from a great lake and knelt shivering before her, their grey heads bowed. (Daenerys, A Clash of Kings)

The significance of the Mother of Mountains is revealed to us by the crones of the Dosh Khaleen themselves :

Even warring khalasars put aside their feuds and shared meat and mead together when they were in sight of the Mother of Mountains. In this place, the crones of the dosh khaleen had decreed, all Dothraki were one blood, one khalasar, one herd.  (Daenerys, A Game of Thrones)

This seems consistent with the prophecy revered among the Dothraki:

"What does it mean?" she asked. "What is this stallion? Everyone was shouting it at me, but I don't understand."

"The stallion is the khal of khals promised in ancient prophecy, child. He will unite the Dothraki into a single khalasar and ride to the ends of the earth, or so it was promised. All the people of the world will be his herd." (Daenerys, A Game of Thrones)

We encounter words similar to the 'ends of the earth' in Bran's ominous visions after his fall :

And he looked past the Wall... north and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried  out, afraid... (Bran, A Game of Thrones)

And what does Quaithe repeatedly remind Daenerys of, the last action she must undertake?

"Remember. To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must  pass beneath the shadow."

The Wall stands as one of the hinges of the world and crossing it would certainly qualify as “riding to the ends of the earth”

"I have dreamed of your Wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges of the world."  (Jon, A Dance with Dragons)

If Daenerys goes to destroy the heart of winter by crossing beyond the wall, she will do so to protect all humanity, she will be the deliverance of all the people of the world who will indeed be her herd and whom she will set free from the shackles of death, the ultimate form of slavery the Others want to enslave everyone with.

[loyalannister]

FIRE QUEENS OF ASOIAF

Cersei felt too alive for sleep. The wildfire was cleansing her, burning away all her rage and fear, filling her with resolve. "The flames are so pretty. I want to watch them for a while."

(~ Cersei, A Feast for Crows)

Ser Jorah was shouting behind her, but he did not matter anymore, only the fire mattered. The flames were so beautiful, the loveliest things she had ever seen, each one a sorcerer robed in yellow and orange and scarlet, swirling long smoky cloaks.

(~Daenerys, A Game of Thrones)

The fire was inside her, an agony, an ecstasy, filling her, searing her, transforming her. Shimmers of heat traced patterns on her skin, insistent as a lover’s hand.

(~Melisandre, A Dance with Dragons)

[loyalannister]

Will I ever stop being mad about the fact that “Winterfell-is-not-dead-just-broken-like-me” Bran Stark, the heir to the North & Winterfell, who is the living breathing embodiment of Ned Stark’s legacy & the Stark hospitality ideals, who keeps himself alive beyond the Wall through memories of his home, whose first instinct during greenseeing training leads him to seek out past visions of Ned Stark in the Winterfell godswood, who is the only surviving Stark kid with actual ruling experience, was completely sidelined as King in the North/Lord of Winterfell by Dumb & Dumber in favour of their favourite characters on the simple expedient of Bran saying that he can never be lord of anything, implying his disinterest in any kind of authoritative capacity and then treated as a non-existent character throughout the rest of the series only to be brought back at the last moment as someone who cannot wait to be lord of the six kingdoms & rule in a place with which he has ZERO ties to & whose people he has no reason at all to care about or connect with!!

[loyalannister]

From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire... mother of dragons, slayer of lies...

(Daenerys, A Clash of Kings)

“I saw towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide. That is where the heaviest blow will fall”

(Melisandre, A Dance with Dragons)

“Perhaps we can fly. All of us. How will we ever know unless we leap from some tall tower?” 

(Euron Greyjoy to Victarion, A Feast for Crows)

‘...the mighty Hightower, with its great beacon, the tallest tower in all the known world.’ 

(The World of Ice and Fire)

“Only their shadows,” Moqorro said. “One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood.” 

(Tyrion, A Dance with Dragons )

The dreams were even worse the second time. He saw the longships of the Ironborn adrift and burning on a boiling blood-red sea.

(The Forsaken, The Winds of Winter)

“And krakens off the Broken Arm, pulling under crippled galleys,” said Valena. “The blood draws them to the surface, our maester claims. There are bodies in the water. A few have washed up on our shores.”

(Arianne, The Winds of Winter)

Then Euron lifted a great horn to his lips and blew, and dragons and krakens and sphinxes came at his command and bowed before him.

(The Forsaken, The Winds of Winter)

“Who would be so mad as to raid this close to Oldtown?" 

(Samwell, A Feast for Crows)

“...Euron is maddest of them all," 

(Aeron Damphair, A Feast for Crows)

[loyalannister]

For the last time

-losing your loved ones

- seeing someone else take credit for your achievement

- not getting love & adoration from one out of seven kingdoms

- acquiring too much power

- having a father who went insane & delirious in his last days

is NOT a checklist of criteria for you to turn insane yourself.

[loyalannister]

One of the many reasons the final season of Game of Thrones feels hollow and falls flat is the sheer inactivity of the characters and nil consequences of whatever they do either way, leading to a severely unearned endgame.

What made characters like Jon Snow, Jaime Lannister & Brienne of Tarth stand out among the hundreds of other soldiers in the battlefield? Sure we all cheered when Brienne was knighted by Jaime - but that was the natural consequence of their interactions & abilities in the past. What did Jaime do in the final season which made us say with certainty that he is nothing like the person who pushed a 10 year old boy out of a tower?

What effort did the Starks actually put in to achieve their ultimate accomplishments? Bran Stark & Sansa Stark did nothing substantial to prove themselves as the guardians of the ancient Stark stronghold. Sansa lied before the heart tree, entrusted a family secret to a Lannister - but it ultimately made no difference in the lives of any of the Starks.

The Lannisters fared no better - Tyrion didn't prove his worth and failed to give any council to his queen which could prove useful to Daenerys. Walking, sorting chairs & staring far off was pretty much all he did. Cersei was established as the ultimate antagonist after the defeat of the Night King - but what did she actually do to deem herself as the ultimate threat other than relying on Euron, his scorpions & the Golden Company (which also proved useless in the end)?

After mostly being MIA for the last two seasons & captured by Euron, this was the perfect opportunity for Yara Greyjoy to establish herself as the skilled naval ally to Daenerys Targaryen by taking down a significant part of Euron's ships - instead she does not do anything of the sort but keeps herself & her forces holed up in the Iron Islands. Where did she put in the effort to be called as the real leader of the Ironborn?

Characters like Davos Seaworth and Varys who were kept in the background for the last several seasons proved that they were fit to remain in the background only. Davos, who had far better knowledge of the waters around Dragonstone than any other character, did not assume command of Dany's naval forces, nor were any suggestions made by anyone in the war council regarding the same. Varys finally produced one piece of information as a spymaster after remaining dormant for ages and sent out letters regarding Jon's legitimacy - but neither of these proved to be of any consequence in the long run.

The anticlimactic end of the War for the Dawn and the poorly executed & rushed "mad queen' storyline weren't the only issues the show suffered from. During their final hours on the screen, the same characters because of whom we fell in love with the show in the first place, failed to prove who they really were, failed to show where their motivation and priorities lie & failed to actively attempt to make Westeros a better place after the incessant wars and bloodshed - and that is where Game of Thrones season 8 ultimately becomes a massive disappointment and a failure in screenwriting.