#this essay was written for people who have never read asoiaf or watched got which is why I left out all of the Lyanna issues

[hatsoff-forgandalf]

A Hero’s Journey to the Block

Eddard Stark and the Hero’s Journey

 Eddard Stark’s travels south and experiences in Kings Landing take him through the hero’s journey but lead to a darker end. Eddard (Ned) began our story as the Warden of the North, living in his ancestral home, Winterfell, with his wife, Catelyn, their five legitimate children, and Jon Snow, the boy Ned says is his bastard son. His life is happy but he is still haunted by his past losses. Everything changes when Ned receives word that Jon Arryn, the  Hand of the King, has died. Both Ned and the King, Robert Baratheon, spent their formative years being fostered by Jon Arryn. Ned and Robert grew to be close friends during this time and regarded each other as brothers. Both Ned and Jon Arryn had helped Robert overthrow the previous King, Aerys Targaryen, who killed Ned’s father, brother, and many others, and kill Prince Rheagar Targaryen. Soon after he received the news of Jon Arryn’s death Ned learned that Robert, who he had not seen for nine long years, and his whole royal entourage were taking the long journey from the capital, King’s Landing, north, to Winterfell. This timing was not a coincidence and signals the beginning of Ned’s journey in A Game of Thrones.

Ned remembers Robert as being “muscled like a maiden’s fantasy”(A Game of Thrones, Eddard I 0:1:24-27), with thick dark hair, heroic, and perhaps a bit too fond of women. The King who arrived at Winterfell was not the same, Robert had changed. He had gained 8 stone, a beard, and a vicious case of alcoholism. His fondness for many women never left him, even after his marriage to golden-haired Cersei Lannister and the birth of their three children. The whole royal family arrived with Robert, Queen Cersei, her twin brother Jaime, her younger brother Tyrion, and the three children, Joffrey Myrcella and Tommen, that all resembled their mother, beautiful and blonde. Immediately after arriving, Robert asks Ned to be his new Hand, to travel south where nearly all of Ned’s family died, to leave behind his wife, and leave Winterfell, his home and his people. But Robert is King, Ned cannot immediately refuse, he really cannot refuse at all, so while Ned does say yes, he still tries to think of a way to escape this. This is Ned’s attempt to deny the call to adventure, in his mind, he’s already had one journey he doesn’t need another. 

When Ned tells his wife, Catelyn, of Robert’s offer she is completely in favor of him becoming the Hand and bringing their two daughters, Sansa and Arya so that they can learn how to be proper ladies and so Sansa can marry Prince Joffrey. Ned remains unconvinced until Catelyn receives a letter from her sister Lysa, the wife of Jon Arryn. Lysa tells Catelyn that Jon did not die of natural causes like everyone assumed and was actually poisoned by the Queen’s family, the Lannisters. Upon learning this Ned decides he has to learn the truth of this and protect Robert by accepting the position as Hand of the King and traveling south with his two daughters. He planned to take his young son Bran with him as well, but when Bran fell from an abandoned tower he had been climbing and became comatose, Ned had to leave him in Winterfell. Ned accepted the call.

During the long journey south, Ned faced some ordeals. He tried to convince Robert not to send assassins after the last two Targaryens, a twenty-two-year-old boy and his fourteen-year-old sister, who were in hiding far away. When Arya and Joffrey got into a fight and Arya’s pet wolf bit Joffrey, Arya made her wolf run away by throwing rocks at it, so Robert commanded Ned to execute Sansa’s pet wolf in place of Arya’s, at Queen Cersei’s insistence, despite the poor beast not having been guilty of anything. This alienated Sansa from him. Then when Ned arrived in King’s Landing he met the man who was to be one of the greatest challenges in his life, Petyr Baelish. Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish grew up with Catelyn and Lysa. He was deeply in love with Catelyn, and he once fought a duel for her hand, which he promptly lost. Baelish climbed the social ladder of the Seven Kingdoms, rising from his position as a minor lord to become the Master of Coin and a member of King Robert’s council. When Ned met all of the members of the council, Petyr made sure to subtly let Ned know that he was out of his depth and emphasize the fact that he, Petyr, is the person who knows the true way of things in King’s Landing. Petyr also constantly mentions Catelyn, in a very sly and almost sleazy manner. He tells Ned that distrusting him was the wisest move he has made. Petyr Baelish sets himself up to be Ned’s mentor while in King’s Landing, but he does not have Ned’s best interests at heart.

Ned must balance ruling the 7 kingdoms for Robert, his investigation of Jon Arryn’s death, and the mounting evidence that he and his daughters are not safe in the south. Petyr Baelish told Ned there is someone he must see and led him on a long complicated journey to a brothel when they arrive Petyr told Ned that Catelyn is inside. Ned, believing this to be an insult to him and his wife, nearly kills Petyr but stopped when a member of the Winterfell guard stepped out of the brothel confirming the truth of Petyr’s statements. Inside the brothel, Petyr tells Ned this is a safe location to meet because this brothel is owned by Petyr himself. Then Ned saw Catelyn who delivered more news against the Lannisters. An assassin had come, one night, to kill Bran while he was still lying comatose in his bed. Catelyn herself managed to fend off the man by holding the blade of his dagger until Bran’s pet wolf arrived and killed the assassin. Catelyn shows Ned the knife and they both agree it was too expensive for a simple assassin when Petyr slithered his way into the conversation saying that this used to be his knife, but he lost it in a bet with Tyrion Lannister, Queen Cersei’s youngest brother. Ned and Catelyn realized that Bran must have seen something the Lannisters did not want him to see and so they tried to silence him. Catelyn then left King’s landing to go and see her sister Lysa. In his investigations about Jon Arryn Ned learns that leading up to his death Jon started acting strangely. He visited a specific brothel, which was nothing like Jon, and a blacksmith’s shop, he was apparently making strange inquiries around town and had taken an old large tome, that was a history of the houses of Westeros, from the Library. Robert and Ned again discussed the last Targaryens, or rather Targaryen, the young man had just died, but the girl was pregnant, and fearing her child’s claim to his throne, Robert ordered her assassinated and Ned resigned in protest. Ned then visited the brothel to find a poor young blonde girl Robert had gotten pregnant and her infant black-haired daughter. He visited the blacksmith and saw a boy, the spitting image of Robert working in the forge. He then read the book of the history and learned that every child born of Baratheon/Lannister marriages was black of hair. Ned realized the horrible truth, The children of Cersei Lannister are not Robert’s but are in fact bastards born of incest between her and her twin brother Jaime. All of this came to a head when Jaime Lannister and his men attacked Ned and his men in the streets of King’s Landing in retribution for actions Catelyn took on her journey to see Lysa, killing many and injuring Ned’s leg badly. When Ned awoke in his bed days later, Robert forced him to take back his position by threatening to make Jaime Lannister the Hand if Ned refused him or gave up the position again. Then while bedridden Ned witnessed an argument between Robert and Cersei in which Robert hit her. Ned thought, not for the first time, that Robert truly was not the same man he once was. Robert then said that he was leaving for a hunting trip for a few days, and brought his young squire Lancel Lannister. Ned knew this was the time to do what was right. he confronted Cersei Lannister, he told her that he knew of her relationship with her brother, that he knew her childrens’ true parentage, and that he knew Jon Arryn had been killed to cover up the truth. Cersei did not deny it. She attempted to seduce Ned to keep him quiet, but he was unmoved. Ned told her to take the children and flee before Robert returned. Ned told her, and he knew, that Robert would not hesitate to have them killed once the truth came to light. Cersei refused, telling Ned that she would either win the throne or die, there was no third option. What Ned did not realize was that this action had just sealed the fate of his friend Robert.

Robert had been gored by a boar on his hunt because he got horribly drunk off the wine given to him by his squire Lancel Lannister, on Cersei’s orders no doubt, and was lying on his deathbed. He asked Ned to write his will and named Ned Lord Protector of the realm until Prince Joffrey could take the throne, but when he wrote it Ned wrote until his rightful heir could take the throne. Ned then wrote a letter to Robert’s younger brother Stannis, telling him that he was the rightful king as Robert’s true heir. He asked Petyr Baelish to get the guards on Ned’s side and Petyr agreed. Ned then told his daughters they had to leave King’s Landing almost immediately but He did not tell them why, both girls were upset, but Sansa was much more upset. Not knowing it would be disastrous Sansa went to Cersei and told her about Ned’s plans to make them leave and break off Sansa’s engagement to Joffrey, and she begged Cersei not to let either of those happen. The next day when Ned arrived in court Cersei sat upon the throne with her son Joffrey and told Ned that Robert’s will meant nothing, when Ned said Stannis was the true King Joffrey ordered Ned to be thrown in the dungeon and Ned felt the cold press of a blade against his neck as Petyr said That he warned Ned not to trust him.

And so Ned enters his ordeal, the time he spent in the dungeons broke him, he could not tell day from night he was plagued by horrible dreams from his past, and guilt over all he left undone. After several days Ned had a visitor, a member of Joffrey’s council, Varys. Varys told Ned that if he falsely confessed to lying and treason Joffrey would let him live in exile. Ned refused, but then Varys reminded him that Sansa and Arya were prisoners of the crown he agreed. Ned confessed on the steps of the church of Baelor, and just as Cersei said to exile him, Joffrey commanded Ned be executed.

Eddard Stark of Winterfell believed in honor and loyalty, his path from Robert calling him to adventure to the trials and challenges he faced in King’s Landing to his transformation enacted by Joffrey follows the path of the hero perfectly, but his journey ends before he can return.

[battlestar-royco]

Just so you know, there’s a SJM account that’s saying you guys worship grrm and like the way he wrote about dany’s rape scene. To elaborate, this user wrote that you guys unfairly critique SJM for including sex scenes in her novels because she’s a woman but then worship grrm anyways because he’s a man. I don’t know if you guys get a lot of anon hate but I thought I would warn you in case because she made it seem as if you guys are abuse apologists instead of just people who don’t like sjm

Okay so I sat down to answer this ask and it kind of unintentionally became an anti SJ/M manifesto. So before I begin, thanks anon for sending me this and giving me an excuse to write it. Here is an obnoxiously long answer about the nature of the anti community. TL;DR, critiquing Mess is valid for many reasons, and there are many further reasons why the “antis should critique GRRM more”/painting SJ/M antis as GRRM apologists/stans arguments don’t really hold water.

I think we’ve run into that essay and maybe actually butted heads with the author. From what I remember, the account in question took us out of context by implying that because we critique SJ/M more and for the most part believe Martin is technically a better writer than Mess, we inherently excuse his horrific depiction of rape and women. I try not to read stan tags or specific accounts except for the rare occasion that someone directs me to a blog, so the only time I see their posts is when an anti quotes or screenshots an SJ/M blog post. I also try not to take stan critics too seriously because every time they critique us they just further clarify that they have no idea what the anti community is about–specifically, our reasons for critiquing SJ/M (rather than Martin), how diverse our approaches to critique are, the kind of action we intend to inspire with our posts, and what we actually post about. The main argument against anti blogs is that we’re too hard on SJ/M in favor of GRRM, which is a strawman argument for many reasons. So even though I shouldn’t have to explain the reasons for our community existing, and specifically not focusing on Martin, this seems a better opportunity than any to do so:

Just because we have more critique of SJ/M on our blogs than we do of Martin doesn’t mean that the critiques of SJ/M are invalid. In fact, we critique SJ/M because her books are written such that people (specifically teen girls and young women, more often white and cishet) are able to reject Martin’s books due to their problematic nature. They can then turn to the hollow feminism of SJ/M’s work and say that she is better–at worldbuilding, at craft, whatever may have you, but specifically at writing women and progressive/feminist narratives. Though I disagree with all of these things, the former aspects don’t bother me as much as the last one. I take great issue with this last takeaway and I think it’s very privileged and even further problematic to maintain it in the grand context of fantasy literature, so that’s why I focus my blog on SJ/M. Additionally, for as long as I’ve been in the community–a little over a year now! :D–I have never witnessed an anti praise GRRM’s diversity and representation of women in a positive light compared to SJ/M. This is in large part because aside from my and Marta’s accounts, GRRM rarely comes up, and if he does it is not in the context of critiquing SJ/M. Additionally, he does not have the Martin equivalent of “Messisms”–AKA repeated and inaccurate claims of progressive sentiments in his books, as SJ/M does. As someone who has read copious feminist/activist and radical gender/postcolonial etc theory, it is very important to me to unpack the implications of Mess’s frequent and frankly careless ascriptions of “feminist” to her books which are being marketed to girls and women. (To be fair, I don’t pay as much attention to Martin’s interviews as I do Mess; his books, writing style, and persona fail to inspire me to research his writing advice and meta commentary.)

Another main reason why GRRM is not discussed as much in the anti corner is that most of our blogs are YA lit-oriented, which necessarily means that many of us mostly or only read and critique women writing fantasy for other women. As Martin is a male adult fantasy author, bringing him up in respect to SJ/M is often inorganic–in fact, probably as inorganic as critique would be on an SJ/M-oriented blog, which is maybe part of the reason why they don’t critique him themselves. For me, there is incredible power in doing the work I see in the anti community–marginalized people coming at the same text with completely different perspectives, using our different knowledge and reactions to the books to spread awareness for other upcoming marginalized readers and writers in the hopes that the YA community at large (again, a community created/maintained by and for mostly women, non-binary people, and girls) will improve. This simply could not be done if our community was GRRM-focused or equally critiquing GRRM as we do SJ/M and other YA authors.

I also find it odd that though SJ/M blogs have expressed interest in seeing more critique of GRRM, they 1). hold anti SJ/M blogs responsible for doing that work (which some of us in fact do) instead of doing it within in their own community and 2). do not seem to seek out the plentiful and diverse ASOIAF/GOT blogs that also critique Martin. I regularly read plenty of ASOIAF/GOT meta blogs that both extensively praise and theorize about his books and offer intricate and harsh critique of his books. Almost all of these are run by women. The existence of such blogs evidences another main reason why GRRM doesn’t come up in anti SJ/M circles as much: the ASOIAF fandom doesn’t need antis because they know how to critique Martin. There is nuance in their conversations that I did not see in SJ/M’s fandom in the years that I was present. That being said, there definitely are Martin stans out there, and in my experience they come in two forms: white edgelord men who love grimdark and violence against marginalized characters, and white women who claim against all contrary evidence that Martin is a wonderful writer who knows exactly what he’s doing and deserves the benefit of the doubt because his books are ultimately progressive and feminist. Neither of these types of stans are anywhere to be found in the anti SJ/M community. This may be because I don’t check SJ/M stan blogs, but I’ve seen way more critique of anti SJ/M bloggers–who were hurt by both Mess’s and GRRM’s books–from stans than I have ever seen of Martin or Mess themselves, and it is often justified with the specific panem-et-circenses argument you mention, anon (ie, ridiculing antis for discussing Mess more than Martin instead of calling out who actually needs to be called out: MESS AND MARTIN). The situation is a lot more complex than “antis have double standards against Mess because Martin is a man.” At this point in my anti tenure, ASOIAF/GOT is the second most-discussed topic on my blog, closely followed by the likes of Casserole Eclair, JKR, YA drama, and random TV shows I’m watching. Seeing as I have been affected (often negatively) by many of these authors, I want to talk about it. I like talking about it. It’s how I engage with most literature, and I don’t see why that’s something stans look down upon.

[heartoferebor]

Can you elaborate on what changed in GoT for you to now dislike the show? Am genuinely curious, have never watched myself.

Okay, let’s see…First, I have to say that I’m really terrible at meta etc and a lot of other blogs (e.g. @gotgifsandmusings and one of my favourite ASOIAF blogs, @turtle-paced) have been far more eloquent than I could ever be - I highly recommend checking out their stuff. But the gist is as follows (once again, no offense to the people still watching but I wish they could just acknowledge the steaming pile of shit this show has become):1) D&D (the showrunners) are absolutely terrible at adapting the book. Like, I’m not sure what kind of ASOIAF they read, but as the seasons went on it became apparent that they understood nothing (and I say this as someone who is autistic and in my case that means being super bad with subtext, metaphors, literary interpretation etc.). It’s…baffling to me, how they could take a set of box that, at the center, still have a message of hope despite all the shit that happens, and turn them into…this. “Everything is bad and you should feel bad” is the literal opposite of what GRRM wrote. Yes, GRRM’s books are dark in places and lots of terrible things happen. But at its heart, it’s a series about how, despite the darkness surrounding everything, there is still good in people. There is still light and it comes out in the most unexpected of places. ‘Being a good person’ is nothing that is inherently given in ASOIAF, but it is something that has to be earned, by hard work on yourself and how your actions affect the people around you (it is, perhaps, one of the lessons that is closest to my heart from any book series I’ve read). The hero isn’t the hero because he was born to be one (see the new Aegon, see Quentyn Martell), but because he worked for it, because he went through a journey and character development to get there (see Brienne, see, yes, my beloved Stannis in the books). (This is also why I roll my eyes when people go on about how ASOIAF is the antithesis to LOTR. No, it isn’t. The end message, ‘there is still good in this world and it’s worth fighting for’, is the same.)And then you have GoT which…is grimdark for the sake of being grimdark. The ‘twists’ are devoid of meaning (if you read the books a second time? you see the Red Wedding coming from miles away, for example) and there for simple shock value. Stuff that already rubbed me the wrong way in S1 (the treatment of Cat and Ros for example) became really amplified in seasons 3 and 4 and by season 5 I couldn’t take it anymore and just dropped it.A great meta/essay that examines that terrible ‘EVERYTHING IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD’ attitude and puts everything that I hate about it in much better words than I ever could, can be found here: Game of Thrones and Acedia.2) The writing is just nonsensical. Character actions don’t make sense anymore (it has gotten to the point the actual ACTORS on the show are speaking out about how they think some of the actions D&D gave them make no sense. THE ACTORS PLAYING THE CHARACTERS.) What are consistent characterisations? What are themes? OH IDK CAUSE THEY CERTAINLY AREN’T ANYWHERE TO BE FOUND IN THIS SHOW3) tw rape for this part The misogyny and homophobia and racism and etc etc etc. There have been books worth of metas and essay written about this so I won’t go into to much detail. But. Why does a woman need to be raped to be ‘empowered’? Why does ‘empowerment’=violence (Sansa is…the ultimate embodiment of everything wrong with this show. Her strength is in her empathy, her intuition. Not in the fact that she can kill people) Remember, when they are jokes about Renly & Loras - we are meant to laugh at the homophobia, marvel at how witty it is. We are meant to find rape funny, and even more disturbingly, the showrunners don’t even recognise rape when it’s on screen (see the Jaime + Cersei scene in S4 - it’s not exactly great in the books either, but in the show it’s even worse). Or how we are supposed to feel sorry for Tyrion when he rapes a sex worker. Uh. NO? Not even to begin with the awful white saviour complex going on with Dany. Oh and of course all bisexuals are hypersexual predators. Haha I’m laughing so hard. HAHA. As I said, GRRM isn’t great with a lot of these either, but at least he bloody tries. 4) Dorne. That was the reason I ultimately dropped the show. Specifically - Ellaria. I just. How do you go from her heartbreaking anti-revenge speech of “Can I take a skull to bed with me, to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh, write me songs, care for me when I am old and sick?”to the…revenge-fuelled illogical something we saw on the show? HOW?!!! Not even to speak of the Sand Snakes. Or anything else going on in Dorne. ._.As I said, I used to love the show. ASOIAF has been one of my favourite book series since I was 15, and I was so incredibly happy to see it adapted on screen. I still think that S2E9 is actually one of the best things put on a TV screen to date, it’s incredible. But yeah, I fell out around S5 and it baffles me how people still find actual enjoyment in it, but hey, whatever floats their boat. The thing is - there is plenty of ‘problematic’ and not so great stuff that I enjoy too (James Bond movies and all those terrible 80s Schwarzenegger movies come to mind, for example). But somehow, the GoT fandom just seems…utterly impervious to critique? Most other fandoms I know are perfectly capable of acknowledging the things wrong with the source material (Star Wars, LOTR, parts of the MCU fandom…). Most GoT fans somehow take the insinuation that their beloved show isn’t the best and most feminist thing ever made personally. YOU CAN ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THINGS ARE CRAP AND STILL ENJOY THEM. THAT’S FINE. But don’t come into my house and tell me that GoT is the pinnacle of TV and there has never been a more ‘accurate’ and ‘feminist’ piece of media. I will probably punch you. And throw the books in your face.

[castaliareed]

Could Jon & Sansa commit the ultimate Taboo?

Stories can tackle the big questions. The complicated questions that don’t have easy answers. I often use my fics to play with the big ASOIAF/GoT questions. Any Jonsa shipper who is being honest with themselves is playing with the taboo/not-taboo nature of an incestuous but-not-really incestuous relationship between Jon and Sansa.  

The @blindestspot has said we could get a JonxSansa endgame but we could get it in the worst possible way. Which makes one wonder...what could be the worst thing? The books and show have lulled us into a sense that well incest is not that terrible. And to this day, I’m not sure if the intent of all the incest is to make the audience think that maybe incest isn’t that bad, or for us to feel unsettled when we start rooting for our beloved favorites to start practicing it. Maybe it’s a bit of both. What if incest is not the worst thing for Jon and Sansa. A relationship or intimate incident involves not just Jon and Sansa but also their direwolves could be much more shocking.

A recent twitter discussion started talking about a relationship between Lady and Ghost, Sansa and Jon’s respective direwolves, I found that a fic would be the only way I could truly play with my crack theory about this relationship. You can read the first chapter of this two chapter little fic on AO3.

The fic led to this companion meta to give a little more detail and context to my thoughts. I had been kicking around a crack/tinfoil about something inappropriate happening while one or both Jon and Sansa are warged into their wolves for some time. Hints of it have certainly popped up in some of my previous fics.

They both have a deep connection to their wolves like all the Stark children. @lostlittlesatellites  is doing a great series of metas on this Jon and Sansa’s particular connection to their wolves.

The Meereenese Blot has written about the potential for Jon to warg into Ghost after he was killed by his Night’s Watch brothers in the ‘Three Questions about Jon’s Future’ essay.. This is pretty much accepted by fans as what will happen/is happening to Jon. During our, Twitter chat the idea that Jon and Sansa could have a sexual experience while warged into wolves was discussed. Some believed that Jon could be warged into Ghost and Sansa will be warged into another wolf. She has lost her own direwolf Lady. But we are told that all the Stark children are wargs. Sansa still has this ability even though we have not been told that she has used it. (There are fan theories that she warged into birds…)

This meta by @shinynewrevulsions talks about resurrection in ASOIAF/GoT and how that relates to Jon’s resurrection in a recent meta. They also reference the ADWD prologue where we are introduced to the POV of the skinchanger Varamyr. He wargs into his wolf One-eyed. We learn that it is considered an admonition to warg into your wolf while they are mating. In this prologue, Varamyr’s wolf One-eye mates with another wolf named Sly. Need I remind anyone that the first Sansa Stark was married to Jonnel ‘One-eyed’ Stark? 

As I always say rules are meant to be broken. Why would be told that warging into you wolf, while they are mating, is an admonition unless someone is later going to do this?

In our discussion. we also toyed with the idea that this all happens in a type of dream sequence. That Jon and Sansa have ‘wolf dreams’ in which something inappropriate happens. I’m going to take it a step further. Sansa may not need to warg at all. Jon may have gone into Ghost when he died and when Jon is resurrected who could have an even more symbiotic relationship with the direwolf. Lady died before Sansa. There is lots of textual evidence to make the case that Lady lives on in Sansa. The direwolves can sense each other. Ghost will then be able to sense Lady in Sansa. 

Sensual/Sexual relationships with beasts was a common occurrence in Greek mythology and folklore up until the middle ages. Leda and the swan anyone? GRRM plays with zoophilia or bestiality in ASOIAF/GoT. Dany’s relationship with drogon for starters? She names him after her dead husband whom she had a passionate sexual relationship with. Drogon is the dragon she ‘rides’. If we look at the show, the dragons have a phallic look to them. Even the sound designer recently said in an interview. “I see him as the reincarnation of Drogo, which leads to a very sensual, almost sexual relationship between the two.”In the books, we see sexual relationships with animals in a horrific manner as well. It is strongly implied that Ramsey forces Jeyne Poole to perform sex acts with his hounds to the horror of pretty much everyone in the universe and out of it. 

The original outline, the outline that said there would be a relationship between Jon and Arya, said that Arya would be terrified when she realizes she is in love with Jon. Terrified is a very strong reaction. If this relationship was swapped for Jon and Sansa, it is Sansa who will be terrified. But why? There are many reasons to feel angst, be sad, shocked, etc. when one discovers they love someone it is impossible to be with but terrified? Jon would never hurt her. She could be scared that people would find out her feelings. Though would that instill terror? Terror suggests that something happens. What could be more terrifying than realizing that you not only are in love with your half-brother but that he is also half-wolf. 

Jon’s return from the dead could signal him becoming ‘god-like’ or at the very least ‘god-like’ in the eyes of the people. If we return to the story of Leda and the Swan. Zeus turns himself into a swan to have sex with Leda. He appears as an animal to other humans as well. Pushing the boundaries between human, animal, and the divine. ASOIAF/GoT is already pushing these boundaries in Bran’s and Arya’s storylines. It is safe to assume that he would continue this theme with our other Starks, Jon and Sansa. But Sansa’s direwolf is dead? So how do you push this boundary to the extreme when she no longer has the animal with her in the physical form. 

One way to do that is to bring her into close intimate contact with another character’s animal. Could a sensual intimate relationship develop between Ghost and Sansa once Jon and Sansa are reunited? It would be the ultimate taboo, worse than incest. It would probably be one of the most shocking ways we could see Jonsa happening. To be honest, it is most likely the stuff of fanfic dreams. Still, an incident with warging and mating involving Jon and Sansa, even one that happens in a dream sequence, would push them further into that ambiguous grey zone. When you look at some of the other things that have already happened in the books. It may not be so so far-fetched. 

[joannalannister]

What do you think it is about ASoIaF that inspires people to the extent that we see in the fandom? I mean, there are tons of incredible people like you analyzing writing for it; you have websites and podcasts and essays written and complex theories and whole books published devoted wholly to the series. I have never seen this level of devotion before. It's incredible, but there are so many amazing books out there; why these books?

Hi! Well, to be fair, I think there are a number of other SF/F franchises that are as popular, if not more popular, than ASOIAF, and that inspire this same kind of devotion. But why ASOIAF? idk why anyone else feels the way they feel, but I can tell you why I love ASOIAF. GRRM wrote in one of the autobiographical sections of Dreamsongs:

By the time we got to Weathertop, Tolkien had me. ‘Gil-Galad was an elven king,’ Sam Gamgee recited, ‘of him the harpers sadly sing.’ A chill went through me, such as Conan and Kull had never evoked.

I knew exactly what GRRM was talking about, because I’ve felt it too:

“No,” Ned said with sadness in his voice. “Now it ends.”

There’s poetry in GRRM’s writing, there’s rhythm and flow and a sorrow that makes me ache:

He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood.

That’s the thing about ASOIAF – GRRM makes you feel it. (How many anecdotes have you read of people throwing their books across the room in rage and horror and despair after the Red Wedding? I’ve read quite a few.) GRRM is able to inspire such strong emotion in me. 

I was saying earlier today how I don’t really have any other fandom besides ASOIAF; I just don’t care. Like, all y’all talk about how easily y’all fall into ~feelings~ and characters and ships, but that’s not me. I watch or read the thing, I’m entertained for a while, it’s fine, and then it’s over; that’s it. (Honestly, some of y’all have wanted me to get into your other fandoms and it’s not that I don’t want to have fun squeeing with y’all, but I don’t know how. idk how y’all care about so many books and tv shows and movies, idk how to care like that.)

So the remarkable thing about GRRM, at least for me, is that he makes me care. ASOIAF matters, because GRRM literally spends years on characterization and worldbuilding and themes, all while telling a damn good story. 

If you watch GOT, you can see the skeleton of GRRM’s story, all the plot points GRRM is trying to hit, but the meat of that story, which comes from characterization and themes, has been boiled away. The result is that there’s nothing left to sink my teeth into, nothing to savor. (I think GRRM would approve of my food metaphors.) GOT has no emotional resonance for me, whereas ASOIAF is all about the emotional journey we’re undertaking. I’ve referenced Stephen King before, and I’ll do it again - it’s not about the endgame, it’s how we get there. The journey, not the destination. That’s something ASOIAF stresses - it’s the journey that matters, because we’re all headed for the same destination, after all; valar morghulis. GOT hits plot points like an arrow to a target. GOT is about the destination; ASOIAF is about the journey. 

ASOIAF emphasizes themes that I love:

identity

choice

justice and vengeance, and the complex nature of each

heroes and villains and what does that even mean

moral ambiguity

human heart in conflict with itself

body as battleground

the horrors of war

the importance of family, and how family means different things to different people

love and hate

truth and falsehood

what does it mean to be a true knight

exiles, outsiders, underdogs

faded glory

life and death and decay and rebirth

Romanticism in the classical sense of the word

the long autumn

the weight of history, the people who came before and those who will follow after 

duty and honor, and how they can be in conflict

disillusionment

sacrifice

light and darkness

what is a monster

empathy versus dehumanization

freedom versus constraint (think of the anti-slavery narrative and how that is relevant throughout the story, in every pov)

HOPE (”MEN STILL SANG, EVEN IN THE MIDST OF BUTCHER AND FAMINE”!!!! SLAYS ME!!!)

a love and celebration of humanity

an exploration of the human condition and what it means to be human (“see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone"), of isolation and loneliness and *sigh, where are you twow and ados* reunions and fellowship

feminism

beauty, appearances, outer beauty vs inner beauty (GRRM’s love of BATB comes in here)

These are themes that transcend the fantasy genre, something “old and true” that speaks to us, that are timeless. 

And I love the motifs GRRM uses to convey these themes - towers, and swords, and bodies and body parts (the Hand of the King, hands, tongues, fingers, noses, genitals), and white knights and black brothers and shadows (living shadows!!!) and birds and the long seasons and gah, I love it all, I love how GRRM uses all of this kind of imagery to explore ASOIAF’s themes and ask deep questions and inspire such passionate thinking (just throw the words “jaime” and “hand” and “redemption” at the fandom if you don’t believe me about passionate arguments)

And I love the thesis of ASOIAF, to hold fast to your principles and to do the right thing, even when doing the right thing is hard and when you won’t be rewarded for it - to stand against dehumanization in all its forms. 

And the characters, the characters, the characters!! I honestly think GRRM spends years on these books because he puts his own blood, sweat, and tears into them to bring them to life, as if they were truly his own children. He works so hard on characterization. 

And sure, the major characters are great, but I’m thinking of the minor characters especially, the ones that, if ASOIAF were a 1990s tv series that ran for 10 seasons, these would be the characters that would appear for one episode. 

Take the Widow of the Waterfront in Volantis. She cut that slave tattoo out of her, she cut off her tears. “Tell her we are waiting. Tell her to come soon.” It’s haunting. Why read fantasy, if not to meet people like the Widow, and Chataya, and Arianne, and everyone else? But GRRM makes meeting these people worthwhile, he makes them memorable, he makes them distinctive, and they all give ASOIAF such a rich flavor. 

And ok, I admit I’m definitely part of the classic Tolkien school of fantasy lit where you Must Have Maps. If I crack a new fantasy book and it has a detailed map, that is already +1 in my book, because it tells me two things: first, we’re going on An Adventure, and two, the author at least tried to worldbuild. 

Good worldbuilding is super important to me, and GRRM is a great worldbuilder.  There’s a sense of something waiting over the next hill, and the next, and the next. It’s someplace different, someplace full of wonder, someplace grander than the place I call home. The clothes are different, the customs are different, the flora and fauna are different, and I want to see it, hear it, smell it, touch it, taste it. And GRRM doesn’t let me down, tbh. Reading ASOIAF is a sensory feast. (And man ok, slightly off topic, but if y’all ever read The Armageddon Rag, GRRM can make you hear that shit, I mean, really hear it, GRRM is amazing.) In ASOIAF, you can feel the silk of the gown Viserys gives Dany, and you can smell the western market and flea bottom, and you can hear the men selling fresh rats on the streets of King’s Landing, and oh god, the drums, BOOM DOOM BOOM DOOM, of the Red Wedding, and the tinkling of Jinglebell’s sad little bells, and Patchface’s creepy song, and the taste of the weirwood paste, bitter and sweet and like the last kiss his mother ever gave him, oh god. (And do you know how many lemon-flavored deserts I’ve had, chasing after Sansa’s famous lemon cakes, let’s not talk about it.) 

Reading ASOIAF is like going through the wardrobe - what’s not to love? I want to go somewhere else, and GRRM delivers. Why read fantasy, if not to gaze up at new stars, and trace out new constellations, and marvel at the way humans everywhere try to push back the darkness by telling themselves stories, be it the story of Orion or of the Ice Dragon up there in the heavens. 

GRRM does such a good job on the worldbuilding that we can seriously have super lengthy academic discussions on politics and economics and warfare and geology and all that other stuff that people do in real life. 

But it’s not just the depth of the worldbuilding, cuz that wouldn’t be enough by itself. GRRM doesn’t just go through the motions, he’s not just hitting targets - he makes you earn it. For example, Stannis really wants to be King, and it’s not enough to just try to storm king’s landing. Why do you want to be King, Stannis? the books ask, and we find out it’s because he has a duty to the people, so he goes to the wall. What did it mean that Tyrion was Hand in ACOK, what did he accomplish, what did he learn, and will he be Hand again in a future book? What do those vows of knighthood mean, and is Brienne the only one true to them? What of Sam, failing to release the ravens at the right moment? When the time comes, will Sam fail again, or will he release the ravens at the critical moment next time, and how much more meaningful is it, when we saw fail the first time? 

In short, I’m devoted to it because GRRM’s devoted to it. He’s a master of his craft, and it shows. I’m only responding to it. 

(Honestly, he never should have allowed an adaptation until this was all over, and then he could have adapted the episodes himself. The best GOT episodes were the ones written by GRRM.) 

[thebluelemontree]

i really liked your meta about sansa/littlefinger but i found out you ship sansan :/ don't you think that what he's doing to her is at least a little bit abusive? sexually and emotionally? their relationship is SO disturbing and creepy, he's a grown ass man clearly sexually & romantically attracted to an 11/12 year old girl, WHY would you ship it???? i don't understand.

First, thank you for liking my meta.  Here’s the thing… I wrote that meta based on textual analysis and in response to how the book community discusses Sansa’s complicated and conflicting feelings toward LF.  Many people mistakenly believe this is Sansa becoming his protege.  I did not write it with the intention of telling some shippers why they are “wrong.”     

As far as shipping goes, I’m a very ship and let ship person.  This is even when, and especially when, it’s a ship I find weird or distasteful.  I stay in my little sandbox and I don’t pay attention to (let alone try to police) what other people want to ship.  I’m too old to be barking up that tree.  I’d rather spend time writing metas or my own fanfic.  Now if I actually am going to argue with anyone on the internet, it’s going to be about the actual ASOIAF text with evidence to back up my position.  Even then I’m highly unlikely to seek out such a debate but on a rare occasion some land on my doorstep.  So…

As to your questions, let me start with the age issue first.  Let me be clear in real life such a relationship would be criminal and immoral, as it should be.  But this is a fictional world where there are vastly different ideas of what is age appropriate.  Remember, the proper way to raise your seven-year-old boy is to take him to a beheading and make him watch everything without flinching (and that’s from our beloved Ned).  I have yet to meet anyone who cried child abuse over this or stopped reading at that point.  So I don’t put too much emphasis on chronological age in questions of morality in the series.  

What I do look at is Sansa’s level of maturity and understanding of relationships and sex.  I do care about her agency.  I don’t ship Sansan (or ship her with anyone) in the early books because she’s still mentally a child and an abused prisoner of war.  I want her to come to her own decisions about what she wants at her own pace, on her own terms.  The good news is GRRM does too.  He rightly separated them at the night of the Blackwater to evolve independently, but parallel to one another.  Alayne II in AFFC is my favorite chapter of this transition to womanhood and maturity, contemplations on sex and love from a young woman’s perspective. 

 I would highly recommend this non-shipper essay on Sansa’s Sexual Maturation by sweetsunray that deals with the unkiss and Sansa figuring out what she wants. (pssst!  It’s Sandor).  A large part of her struggle is coming to accept the fact that what she does want is not the ideal as she always believed it would be.  The books are full of people just wanting who they want and it has nothing to do with the ideal standards.      

Do I think Sandor is abusive to Sansa? Like Joffrey and Littlefinger are abusive toward her?  No.  Definitely not.  I think he was at times impatient and frustrated with her superficiality, naivete, and immaturity.  He’s too uncompromising and overly harsh at times with the truth as he sees it.  Yet, Sansa is not afraid to challenge him when he’s being awful.  She is totally afraid of saying the wrong thing in front of Joffrey or Littlefinger.  

The only reason Sandor cares at all about her is that she cared first.  She responded to his secret, his vulnerability with compassion.  For once in his life, someone took his side after the system rewarded his brother and failed him.  It’s not at this point anything romantic or sexual for either of them.  He responds to her compassion by being protective and supportive through her abuse.  She reawakens in him a desire to be better.  He’s a jaded idealist, not a nihilist.  He does seek out her attention because he does crave a connection with someone, even if he can’t people around her.   He doesn’t want the intimacy to end because of his loud and clumsy mishandling.  He’s also frustrated with himself that he even wants a connection in the first place because he hates/fears the vulnerability that comes with it.  He’s a ball of conflicting emotions about her that he has no experience in how to sort out.  It’s very important that Sandor is written as someone who is as inexperienced in relationships as Sansa.  It levels the playing field between them.    

It’s not until Sansa has obviously started developing into a woman that he even notices her in that way (because the whole castle has).  He’s very drunk and he blurts out the inappropriate comment about her body.  It’s a very bungled attempt at flirting coming from someone who is also very emotionally stunted.  BUT… after talking with her he realizes that mentally she is still very innocent.  He knows it’s wrong, so he backtracks out of there as fast as he can, falling into an awkward silence.  That is the very worst of anything sexual that actually happens between them and he backs off.  Even the night of the Blackwater he is very drunk and his behavior is scary and wildly inappropriate, but it never crossed the line into permanent damage.  He never actually did anything sexual to her. He also could have forced her to go with him, but he did not.  She made her choice, it hurt, but in the end, he respected her decision to not go with him.  Do I think maybe he wanted to kiss her?  Yeah, probably.  But he didn’t.  He is not Gregor.  He is not a rapist.  He cares about her autonomy.  He cares about her consent even if he kind lost his mind (from trauma) for a minute there which he really, really regretted.  

This all says problematic to me, not creepy.  There are issues to overcome.  Good!  Bring it on!  That makes a story.  Littlefinger is creepy.  He totally does not care about her consent, boundaries, or discomfort to say the very least.  Men of all different ages have groped her, forced kisses on her, stripped her, beat her, and have attempted to rape her.   

If you don’t ship Sansan that’s totally fine by me.  If it doesn’t speak to you, that’s cool.  Ship and let ship.  I will say Sansa x whoever shippers are probably going to be very disappointed come TWOW.  All the mountains of text evidence point to future Sansan.  I got a huuuuuge meta coming out soon that deals with all that complete with tons of evidence to back up my analysis. Bottom line, I ship future Sansan because GRRM ships it and Sansa ships it.  Whatever makes that baby girl happy I want her to have.  The good news is when the author reunites them it will be when they are both really ready and have dealt with the respective issues that made an earlier relationship a terrible idea.