#thinking of hornet and i'm thinking of arya

[bloomingbluebell]

something about how female characters who are fighters are often characterized by the fandom as unhinged, chaotic, mean, aggressive, etc. even when, canonically, they're none of those things. and if they aren't any of those thing, then they're considered boring, uninteresting, etc.

[neuxue]

Alright, sorry for those deeply /un/original questions, but you've made me curious about your opinion on asoiaf... Perhaps just, did you read/enjoy the books? Who are your favourite and least favourite characters? Hope I'm not kicking the hornet nest.

Oh man, it’s been a while since I’ve talked about ASoIaF on this blog (well, outside of this last week). 

Did you read/enjoy the books: I read the books, and as far as enjoy... yeah, sure, why not, let’s go with yes. Do I have criticisms? Abso-fucking-lutely. Are they all-time favourites? Nah. But they were enjoyable on first read, and I’m always here for dragons and amorality, and the fact that it’s unfinished makes it a really fun sandbox (I was actually poking around in my pile of years-old unfinished fic and thinking maybe one day I should, you know, finish it). I honestly think I prefer the series unfinished, and hope it stays that way.

I do not enjoy what large parts of the fandom turned into, and that’s kind of put me off some of it, but at this point it’s maybe been long enough and also I’ve reached that particular stage of ‘fuck it’ where I no longer quite care, so.

Also, listen. An ice-and-fire motif will get me every time.

Who are your favourite...

Rhaegar, probably. Yeah, yeah, I know. But listen, I love a sad doomed harpist, and I love a melancholy silver prince, and I love a character who walks into what he knows will be perceived as villainy and lets the world damn him for it, and I love a void in the narrative, a character we’ll never know except through pieces filtered through those who hated or loved him. I think it’s the fact that we see so little of him that makes him so well-executed, and I have Thoughts. I also, as we know, have a Type.

Honourable mentions for Arya, occasionally Jaime, the idea of what Petyr Baelish could be in the hands of another author (yeah, yeah, I know, but listen, I love an amoral schemer), and I have a weird thing about Renly sometimes. No I don’t know why either. Oh and Quaithe is a lot, as a concept. And Jaqen H’ghar is an entire situation.

And, of course, let us not forget. Daenerys Targaryen Did Nothing Wrong.

...and least favourite characters?

Least favourite is always a hard one for me because I am, surprisingly to some, very much a glass-half-full look-for-positives kind of person, and while there are characters I find uninteresting, or characters I’ll love to hate, or characters I think are poorly executed, I struggle with just a general ‘least favourite’.

I don’t give a shit about Bran, Robert is meh, I will defend Sansa but I don’t particularly enjoy her, Littlefinger deserved a better author, the Greyjoys irritate me, and (show) fandom pretty much ruined any chance there might have been of me liking Tyrion.

(And nah, you’re not kicking a hornet’s nest, don’t worry. I’m just wary of large fandoms that have gone through their whole ‘everyone loves it and then suddenly everyone realises they can gain Internet Woke points by hating it so then everyone hates it, and if you have the Wrong Opinions about the Wrong Characters then you are Bad’ metamorphosis because things get ugly and I've been on the internet too long)