#topic anti-sansa-stans

[rise-my-angel]

The thing about being anti jonsa and anti jonerys, is that when fellow anti jonsa's start going through my posts because they liked my opinions, they end up finding my anti jonerys posts, and vise versa. And considering so many anti jonsas are pro jonerys and anti jonerys are pro jonsa, they see how vocal I am about their sacred cow and get mad that I apply my standards of criticizing one ship they dont like, to the other ship that they do like.

Tldr: I just got blocked by a very popular blog that is fairly pro jonsa just 2 weeks after being blocked by a different fairly popular pro jonerys blog. And I think its really funny, I get like 10 notes per meta post but my takes are appparently just too spicy so everyone hates me.

Next thing I know the Jonrya blogs are gonna start blocking me, oh no anything but that

[finitefall]

Are we welcome to follow if we love Rhaenyra AND Alicent? I think Rhaenyra is undeniably the rightful heir and it was a huge mistake that Alicent went to her father after hearing the King’s dying words instead of sending a raven to Rhaenyra to talk to her about it and what she’s doing is wrong, but I also have a huge amount of sympathy for her and could write essays on why I think she’s going along with putting Aegon on the throne despite knowing that he’s unfit to be king. In my eyes, it has less to do with Rhaenyra and more to do with wanting to feel like she had power. She realizes that her council has planned to crown Aegon all along. If she resists, she will certainly fail and have to confront the fact that she lacks true power here. If she goes along with it and tries to do it her way, she can maintain the more comfortable illusion that she does has power, avoiding the uncomfortable truth. It’s complex and I enjoy her for it. That said, I know she was waaaaay different in the book. I haven’t read it.

Also have to love Helaena and Rhaenys!

+add on to last ask: this is not to say Alicent is somehow “feminist.” She isn’t. I just think her actions are rooted less in wanting a man on throne and more in wanting the years she spent suffering to mean something, to actually amount to some control. The actions are sexist, but I think her motives are more complex deep down

Hi nonnie! First of all, of course you're welcome to follow and talk with me if you want to. There are plenty of people in the ASOIAF fandom I have zero interest in talking to (Daenerys haters are literally not welcomed here, for example). But you don't have to love Rhaenyra or hate Alicent. You can love both, hate both, love one more than another, I don't care as long as you're not incapable of understanding that Rhaenyra was the Heir and the Greens commited treason.

More on Rhaenyra being one of my favorites ASOIAF characters: she wasn't a good Queen and I don't like the comparison between her and Daenerys. Of course, we can make obvious parallels between those two characters, but Dany is a hero and would be a good Queen (I strongly believe in this) while Rhaenyra was a tyrant. But she's a very interesting character and I love her in a totally different way than I love Dany (I know this is off topic, I'm totally taking advantage of your message to answer to those saying we can't be both Dany stans and love Rhaenyra)

Of course, at this point on the show, I'm rooting for Rhaenyra. But I don't think you'll love her as much in the future or if you read Fire & Blood. Rhaenyra was whitewashed in the show, Alicent too (they did the opposite for male characters, like Daemon). But enough about that since you haven't read about the book characters.

About feminism: neither Alicent or Rhaenyra is a feminist. Rhaenyra isn't at all about women's rights either, except for herself. The difference between the Blacks and the Greens is that one side of this Dance commited treason, and that this treason has a direct link with the patriarchy.

Of course, you're allowed to feel for Alicent. I don't like Alicent but that doesn't mean I'm not disgusted at some things people have been saying (I'm convinced at this point that half of the ASOIAF fandom is brainless...) Also, if I tag some posts “anti x stans”, it’s because I don’t want to use the character tag. It’s not respectful for the fans who are going through their favorite character tag (I’m so tired of Dany hate showing up in the “daenerys targaryen” tag just because antis can’t be bothered to use proper tags). It’s not because I actually hate their fans.

I'm not a fan of Sansa or Alicent, and I have an amazing friend that I've known for a few years now whose favorite ASOIAF/GOT character is Sansa and whose favorite HOTD character is Alicent (she hasn't read Fire & Blood either, by the way). I would gladly read your metas about Alicent, even if we don't agree, but I feel like you could talk a lot about her with my Kitty Kat @alicentes, if you’re looking for someone who loves Alicent but isn’t at all anti Rhaenyra! 💕

This is also to say that, while I know there are people who only show respect to someone if they agree with them on every single thing, that’s just as unhealthy as all the disgusting hate we see in this fandom. So yes, you are welcome here. Of course you are. Shoot me a message off anon so I can know it's you? You can tell me if you don't want it published, although you honestly don't have to be scared of people going after you when you said nothing offensive!

Your favorites so far are Alicent, Rhaenyra, Helaena and Rhaenys? Mine are Rhaenyra (big surprise, I know), Daemon, Rhaenys, Mysaria.

[asoiaf-source]

Fighting Hate with more Hate. That always works, right?

“Sansa’s fans are so defensive of her because of the rest of the fandom demonize her and hate her for no reason.” - helenakey

So then the answer is to demonize the other women characters for no reason?

Of course there are going to be ‘fans’ that hate on a character for no reason, I’ve seen people post unnecessary and unreasonable hate on many of the characters, not just Sansa, and they can be as annoying, but they are not representative of the entire fandom. Not ALL fans are hating on her, and some are just looking at the character critically. I’m new to the tumblr metas (avoided for a long time due to the toxic reputation), but i’ve been on ASOIAF forums for a long time and there are plenty of Sansa supporters, even if she is still quite a polarizing character due to how people wish to interpret her... but Sansa stans on tumblr take it to the next level!

I’ve never seen this side of her fans before, or at least so much nearly every day, and subsequently the many rebuttals! And how often they like throwing other characters under the bus, often for hypocritical reasons. Like the OP yendany said, they ignore the trauma in other characters or dismiss it as not as bad, when it is often much, much worse. They criticize and attack other female characters to prop up Sansa ‘better’ survival skills, or attribute qualities to her she doesn’t possess (I see this a lot in fanfiction, before I realized the self-insert aspect), or use her age as excuse when all the main characters are young or even younger than her. The line porcelain to ivory to steel... can really apply to any character that has to grow up and face the harsh realities of the world... so it is really hypocritical to think Sansa is special in some way for overcoming her situation, all the characters are going through the same struggle, and many have it much worse. That is where I think so much of the anti-sansa stans come from, the hypocrisy and the tearing down of other just as deserving of sympathy/empathy characters, especially other women characters. It is a weird juxtaposition, that anyone with a reasonable sense of objectivity can pick up on and often do.

I mostly see it done against Arya and Dany, the two more prominent female characters in the books (thus the 2 who draw more focus than #3 Sansa?). The two female characters GRRM is telling a lot of his story through and spending a large amount of the text (right from book 1) to develop their growth as characters and showcase their strengths, intelligence, determination, fortitude, agency, cleverness, resilience and so much more. It’s as if because the other women are not ‘pure’ or see themselves that way and stronger in personality and character that somehow their suffering doesn’t affect them as much because they are tougher and didn’t let anything that happened to them stop them from growing stronger. They aren’t dwelling in victim-hood too long before they pick themselves back up and move forward.

And yet, they cheer when Sansa starts to grow stronger... Sansa’s growth has been much slower, we are moving into book 6 and she is just starting to gain a bit of agency, but she is still heavily under the tutelage of Baelish. We will see how far she gains in the next book and if she will break with Baelish by the end of it and be a fully independent player. But her development isn’t nearly on the same scale as Daenerys and Arya. That isn’t to imply that she isn’t going to be important, but it is clear from the text that she is not one of the main focuses for GRRM, or he would have developed her faster and given her more to do. We will see how much ground he can cover in 1-2 books, but there is only so much he will be able to accomplish and have it be believable, especially with so many POVs and story lines that he needs to develop.

I actually think their attempts to (over) defend her backfire, as so many feel the need to point out the falsehoods and misinterpretations, especially when they are wildly mean-spirited and completely refutable by the text. As I traverse through the ASOIAF metas I often come across fans metas writing rebuttals to other posts, to ‘correct’ their conclusion or ‘facts’. I’ve read so many of these they are starting to get repetitive, I also read some of the Sansa-stan posts they are rebutting and, yeah I can see why so many get upset. If you don’t like it when others tears down or dismisses Sansa, why do you think fans of the other characters wouldn’t comment when you go after their favs, especially so mean-spiritedly.

I don’t think I ever felt so much negativity towards the Sansa character until I had to read so many skewed and biased metas turning her into some kind of saintly YA Disney princess type that is just too good for this cruel world. That kind of character has no place in a series like this. You can’t help but want to point out the wild inaccuracies, and it makes me feel a negativity towards a character I didn’t feel negative to before. And I don’t want to feel negative towards her, she is a Stark and I root for the Starks, especially the kids. I often defended her against those who (I feel) just don’t understand what it is like to be a preteen girl, I relate to a lot of Sansa’s weaknesses and how she feels, especially at that age, and that is her appeal (to me) - the fact that she starts off very weak.

Sansa is weak both physically and mentally, she cares too much about rank, privilege, and what others think about her, her desire to conform, for everything to be proper, and properly in their place. She has the luxury to think that way because she is a rich, pretty, noble girl who ranks at the top of society, of course she sees life as great and never questions it... she is already at the top and winning from birth. This is why (I think) she is so hard on Arya, she messes with her idea of what is proper/good/right.  Arya isn’t pretty and doesn’t try to be, she acts more boy than girl, she plays with dirty, smelly, poor children, etc... Those are all an embarrassment to Sansa and go against what a proper lady of her rank should do and care about. Once they head south, all the things Arya gets away with at home will stand out even more and reflect badly on Sansa, by association. So, she criticizes and distances herself even more, because she wants to join the elite glamorous world of the nobility.

The other girls don’t have those weaknesses, that is why they are seen as better able to cope than Sansa does.  They grow quicker and stronger faster because they are not as inhibited by what the ‘rules’ are. This isn’t a criticism of Sansa, this is an observation and I think it is the entire point of including a character like her in the story. GRRM could have followed the original outline for her, but he wanted to ‘reform/rescue’ her character and give her (I hope) a better path back to her family and happiness. I think it is GRRMs way to show how young girls should NOT romanticize noble life or being pretty will lead to a ‘perfect’ life. That thinking of yourself as a lady or being a princess/queen isn’t what is important. That marring a ‘title’ (lord/prince) or a handsome face is not enough to lead to happiness. It is what you do with your life, and how you care about others and who cares about you - that is what is important. But some Sansa fans seem to miss that and want her to have all those thing and more... they want it both ways, her to learn all those things, and yet still get all those things... a beautiful princess life clear of the harsh actions to gain it and also a happy family married to the best, more heroic and honorable man - a fairy tale ending. And that is not ASOIAF.

They are reducing her entire arc to becoming a nicer, more pure, and pretty, prize for a man to love, marry and make their queen. If so, GRRM will botch the ending of his series and all the points he *seems* to be making thus far.

A major theme (to me) in Sansa arc is her lack of value in her home and family. Sansa (to me) is like the small town girl who can’t wait to leave her family / Winterfell behind and to move to the big glamorous city (King’s Landing) and become royalty. But once she got there wasn’t able to accumulate with its more complicated and corrupt realities of the court. Even setting the cruelty of Joffrey aside (he is an aberration, not a normal example), how everyone else ostracizes or ignores her (except the hound, and to some extent Tyrion - although he isn’t all that great). The way the Tyrells treat her before and after her wedding is much more representative of how typical court life and nobility behaves normally (I think). Sansa never saw the true value of being surrounded by people who love and care about YOU and whom you can trust and rely upon - until that is all taken from her. She slowly sees how the people at court are corrupt and deceitful under all the beauty and glamor she so aspired to only after being fooled more than once, and (to me) no longer wants any part of it, but is forced to play, thanks to Baelish.

This is a point I find many of her fan miss, they think Sansa is going to learn to play the game, destroy everyone with her cunning and beauty and rise to the top to be queen or a ruler - a path which will ultimately lead to down a very dark and cynical path... but somehow they think Sansa will be different, and her rise will be more like a Disney princess story, one where she will gain power without having to sink low to do it. That is NOT the kind of book GRRM is writing.

”I’ll make them love me.” - another childish statement, you can’t make people love you, you earn love and respect. And Sansa hasn’t done that once the entire series, she hasn’t made a single friend. No one is looking to follow or fight for/beside Sansa, save Baelish, and we all know that plan is doomed to fail, as he isn’t to be trusted or relied upon and wants to use her. I would even question her friendship with Jeyne Poole as it is clear she never saw them as equals, and that is not real friendship... more like Jeyne was a companion/lady-in-waiting type.

The few people who care about her (other than family) either are working on behalf of an oath to Catelyn, or have their own ambitions/sexual desires/pity for her and not necessarily care about her for herself because she was a good and loyal friend to them. Maybe this will change in the next book, but with Baelish keeping close tabs and guiding her, who knows how well she will be able to make any genuine relationships with others given all the secrets she has to keep.

Her only realistic path to leadership is through marriage and that is hardly giving her agency as a heroic rise to a leader of a men... more like sleeping her way to the top.  Not something I want for Sansa, and I hope her ‘marriage’ to Tyrion works as plot armor against her being used like that.

Besides GRRM has kinda stressed that ‘real’ leadership comes from understanding people, observation, and experience, and not just from strategics marriage (Margaery, Cersei) or inheritance (Joffrey, Tommen, Cersei - she could prove the point all on her own :). Every leader in the book so far has to make compromises, make hard decisions and even make harsh, sometimes very bad decisions and live with those consequences. None of the characters in the series have escaped this as much as Sansa has, since so much of her story thus far is about her lack of agency, and being a pawn used by others (and to some extent she still is with Baelish). For her to make it to the end w/o doing anything and staying ‘pure’ and that is how she ends up on top, by essentially not taking many large personal risks, allowing others to do all the heavy lifting morally, mentally and physically. If winning means standing on the sidelines watching everyone else do the WORK, and just giving suggestive nudges here and there to have things turn out in your favor so you can just coast to the top (that is the Baelish way)... well, that is kinda the worst message GRRM could leave us with.

If GRRM wants Sansa to become a leader, she will have to get her hands dirty too, she will have to take great personal risks to gain power and accept the consequences good or bad that result, learn from them and move forward... otherwise it defeats one of the main points of his series and turns her into a simplistic cliche version of a character.  Every character with a POV has gone through this, it is one of the major themes in ASOIAF, a more realistic, less easy way of looking at how you obtain power and learn by experience and a series of victories and defeats. Thus far Sansa has also avoided examining her actions and how they have affected her, she either never thinks about them, changes the facts to suit her better, or blames others without seeing the part she also played... I’m not blaming her, but her action did contribute to the situation... she never seems to realize this and I feel it is going to eventually hit her hard, she has to mature and grow out of her ‘unreliable narrator’ eventually, and it must lead to something for GRRM to make it such a large part of her narrative of coping with her trauma. I assume he wrote her this way for a reason and is going to do something with it.

I’m looking forward to a darker more realistic Sansa who has more agency and understanding, and I expect her to make her own mistakes and moral compromises (well she already has, but there was some coercion - but it also means she is capable of doing so) just like all the other POVs have had to do. I also look forward to her finally owning up to her past actions and how they also contributed to where she is now. If she can’t take some personal responsibility she will never grow. That is a part of having agency, understanding how your decisions and actions affect you and others.

I wish all the back and forth would stop, cause I’m tired of seeing it in my feeds, but I guess it has been going on for years - the same arguments/rebuttals - so I guess it will continue, even after we get the next book... I think only the completion of the entire series will end some of these arguments, but who knows - after some of the meta I’ve read, there will probably be even more, lol.

Well, I wanted to comment and give my two cents, but it ended up being longer and I guess for me all this is still new and offsetting.  I guess I had more to say that I thought, even though I edited A LOT out because I wanted to keep it focused. I’ve just started to dip my toes into this crazy platform, so I’m sure this is just the tip of the toxic metas that I heard can be found here... can’t wait to read the anti-dany metas... that is sure to fill me with a sad rage as well, i know the show did her no favors, sigh....

[whentheynameyoujoy]

Sometimes I wonder how people manage to acknowledge the canonical ship between Sansa Stark and Sandor Clegane while also producing one essay after another about how Sansa isn’t actually kind, isn’t actually intelligent, isn’t actually perceptive, isn’t actually compassionate, isn’t actually intuitive, isn’t actually quick-thinking, isn’t actually associated with motherhood, isn’t actually missed by her family, that must have been another character’s POV you’ve read, champ. Like that’s some impressive pretzel stans are bending themselves into. For all the (justified) talk about how show!stans/jo*nsas like to ignore Sansa’s flaws (the bullying or the classist way in which she applies the better parts of her personality come to mind) or how they need to siphon more flattering traits off other, more popular characters with more epic political storylines in order to appreciate her at all, some segments of the fandom appear to be really, really invested in stripping Sansa of her canonical positive attributes, lobbing them off to others, and turning the story into a competition where one character earns the good gurl award while the other gets to be the shallow one-note cunt.

Because I’m sure that’s what GRRM had in mind when he began writing this shit.

I mean, if you read Sansa’s story as this sleight of hand to reveal ladydom as an irreparably empty idea pursued only by the shallow and then bend Sansa’s canonical arc as either not there or insufficient in order to justify your dismissal of the character’s positive traits, then how the fuck do you square SanSan in the first place? How in the shit do you deal with the canonical pairing that’s all about rebuilding the knight and his lady trope if the female party has been a Cersei in the making this whole time? How do you explain a knightly romantic-turned-embittered cynic falling for what he comes to see as a lady from the songs if his love interest doesn’t actually possess any of the valued aspects that define the idealized notion of a lady?

Srsly, at this point I see no difference between the john*lock jo*nsa stans treating Sansa as basically a perfected Dany in a red wig, and people who obsess over the ugly AGOT aspects of her character on the eve of book six, as though she has underwent no development at all, as if her entire story isn’t centred around internal correction of her established flaws, around her seeing through the lies and opportunism of courtly society, around her finding beauty and worth in what she used to despise, around her trying to be a good person even in situations where it’s detrimental to her, by relying on the good parts of ladydom. Both sides have turned Sansa into this flat arc of either “always was perfect” or “always will be worthless”, the stumbles on her journey either don’t exist or are a capital crime, and I have no strength to entertain this triangular firing squad of horseshit anymore.

When it comes to values ASOIAF has one fucking theme, and that’s “honour, love, bravery, loyalty, all these things that we take as a matter-of-fact marker of a good person are complex, a lot of times inherently contradictory and impossible to achieve in any kind of pure form, but nevertheless should be strived for because they contain a kernel of truth and it’s that kernel of truth that’s necessary for the world to be a place worth living in, for it to even function.” How stans, the pro or anti, believe Sansa and the theme of ladydom are in any way exempt from that I’ll never understand. Just like Jaime or Brienne or Sandor are about exploring knightly honour, not rejecting it, just like Arya is a deconstruction of the worldly prince who’s one with the commoners, not a justification of class divides, just like Dany is a challenge to the wise despot trope, not a personified case for slavery, so’s Sansa an exploration of the feudal underpinnings of the lady concept, not a 2010 reddit bro revelation of what a horrible person a Disney princess would be in real life. It’s really not that fucking deep.

Fuck me, WoW can’t come soon enough.

[istumpysk]

omg can you explain me why there is a conversation around about sansa & motherhood?? like i've seen some sansa antis talking about how sansa would be such a bad mother and i've seen as well a sansa stan talking about this topic and OMG 😭 sansa is 13 years old and people are already discussing if she will be or not a good mother. like, she's 13yo she - obviously - will commit mistakes when it's come to child because she - herself - is a child LOL

I totally get it, anon. It's icky, uncomfortable, and you have every right to hate it.

Unfortunately George has backed himself into a corner, and he's committed to executing storylines originally meant for a 19-year-old Sansa.

I presume the majority of us hate the idea of her having a child at 14, but are resigned to the fact that it's likely to happen. She is the future matriarch of House Stark, and there’s a lot of evidence that suggests it won’t be saved for the epilogue. :\

[witchqueenvisenya]

i go the daenerys targaryen tag and it's full of illiterates and hypocrites......bless. actual bullies projecting like their lives depend on it and people who lack critical thinking beating their chests and crying about dany stans. anyway shoutout to the sane sansa stans who got out before their fandom turned batshit crazy and people who know what feminism is, who can criticize things in the narrative without blaming the character, people who know and do not throw around terms like colonialism, imperialism and muddle through whatever west centric race politics they've internalised. i'll be called white because of this post and because people assume dany stans cannot recognize the orientalism grrm imbued her storyline with, but this fandom is full of white people bullying actual poc and talking down to us so i don't think self reflection and actually reading up on topics they lack the knowledge of is a strong suit of antis.

[weirwoodking]

I have a genuin question but do you think that Sansa will become Queen in the North? I'm not sure anymore what her endgame will be in the books (the show doesn't count for me)

This is kind of a… sensitive topic, because there are certain people who will call you “anti-Sansa” if you answer anything less than “absolutely” to this question. The only reason this is a touchy conversation in the first place is because of the show.

So… I have not seen the final three episodes of the show. I only found out about the endings through other sources. The show doesn’t count for me either. None of the show endings for the characters made sense.

I dislike all of the show characters, and that includes Show!Sansa. I don’t like the storyline (something I share with GRRM), I don’t like the personality, I don’t like the costuming, I don’t like the way the actress was directed, I don’t like the ending. I hate how people say that “Sansa got the only good ending”. ?????? That ending is a horrible ending for Sansa. Alone in Winterfell, completely separate from her family? How the fuck is that a good ending? No. “Sansa becoming Queen in the North no matter what” is not the only “good ending” for her. I talked about this here.

And this isn’t to say I think it’s impossible for Sansa to end the story as QitN, I just think it’s improbable. Based on the current text, this is my ranking for who’s most likely to be ruling Winterfell/House Stark at the end of the story:

1. Bran (Will most likely be king, but we don’t know what exactly that means. What state will Westeros be in after the Long Night? I talk about that here.)

If (and that’s a big if) there is a separate leader of House Stark who isn’t Bran:

2. Arya (Already has an extensive amount of “leader of wolves”/”leader of the pack” symbolism. Her direwolf is named for Nymeria, a famous queen. Arya, through her wolf Nymeria, is a “queen of wolves”.)

3. Rickon (Bran’s heir, next male in line.)

4. Sansa (Eldest trueborn child. Has a line that people believe is foreshadowing for her show ending happening in the books.)

5. Jon (Named by Robb as his heir, although the will was written under the belief that Bran, Rickon, and Arya were dead. But just don’t think it would fit his story.)

(Also, we could definitely see a Pevensie siblings style ending, where they are all the Lords and Ladies/Princes and Princesses. Wish more people would talk about that. Could definitely see GRRM being inspired by that.)

So, the line that people refer to the most for “Sansa will be queen” theories is this:

"The only way to keep your people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy."

"I will remember, Your Grace," said Sansa, though she had always heard that love was a surer route to the people's loyalty than fear. If I am ever a queen, I'll make them love me. (Sansa VI, ACOK)

It bothers me because people tend to ignore the real importance of that line, and what it’s actually saying about Sansa as a character, as a person. The purpose of that line is not to “foreshadow that Sansa will definitely be queen”. The line ties into how Sansa believes “everyone wants to be loved”, and is hopeful in love, despite everything she’s gone through. It shows that Sansa believes more in the power of love than in the power of fear. She is not letting herself be influenced by what Cersei is trying to teach her. She doesn’t want to be like Cersei.

Which is not something that show!Sansa does. It’s been a long time since I saw the show, but a moment that sticks out in my head is where show!Sansa tells show!Jon that wildlings “have to fight for them because they owe Jon their lives”.

……..

Jon’s plot in ADWD involves him becoming the leader of the wildlings over time, as he earns their trust and support. He becomes their leader at the end of Jon XIII because they follow the man, and he has proved himself worthy. Not because they “owe” him something. Show!Sansa uses fear rather than love to secure loyalty. “You owe me your loyalty” rather than “I’ll earn your loyalty.”

Show!Sansa is a completely different character than Sansa Stark from A Song of Ice and Fire. Show!Sansa became the QitN, and that means absolutely nothing for the real Sansa.

Basically, I, as a book fan, feel no obligation to say that Sansa will be Queen in the North just because I want to stay on good graces with toxic show stans.

And no, I do not predict that Sansa will end the series as the Queen in the North. That doesn’t mean I’m against it, it just means I don’t see it happening. And if the show had never happened, this question would not be nearly as controversial as it is. Like, I feel the same way about saying “Sansa won’t be queen” as I do about saying “Rickon won’t die” or “Jon won’t be exiled beyond the wall” or “Cersei won’t be killed by a brick”.

TL;DR: I never thought about Sansa being queen until season 8 happened and everyone made it a debate. I don’t think she’ll be queen, the books don’t give me that implication.

(Also… Sansa would still be royalty, btw, she’d still be a princess. I don’t know why people treat it like she’d be a nobody if she isn’t queen at the end. She’s still a goddamn princess. She’d still be wearing a crown.)

[letbarbieshavedragons]

What's up with the Rheagar hate in general? I never got that. Rhaegar seems to be hated across the fandoms?! Hats off for accomplished THAT Grrm, never have seen something like that😂. But no seriously, why? Like sure, prophecy-driven, reckless running of with a pregnant teenager, leaving his wife&children, starting a war etc... its shit, but i have seen way worse. WE ALL HAVE, i mean look at Tywin, Caster, the Mountain, Euron (and thats are only the fuckers in the same story!!)

And that while the worst villians ever have apologists, because they have a sad backstory?! Wouldn't Rhaegar fit in perfectly in that? Him being emo, beautiful, loner, having a abusive father, making one mistake after anothery even tho he should have known better etc. Don't get me wrong, i feel indifference towards him, like to ALL pre-asoiaf. Since i dont get how you can stan or hate a 'character' where we only have like 5 lines about?! But how?

I’m assuming these are the same asks lol, since they seem to flow together, but sorry if it’s a coincidence and I just happened to get three asks about Rhaegar in a row lol

Also sorry in advance for the long reply, this topic has always made me curious as well lol

Anyhoo, I agree. it definitely surprised me as well how strongly some people feel about Rhaegar. and I say that as someone who doesnt really like Rhaegar all that much either . Tho, I’m in the same boat. I can’t say I hate him, when I really don’t know/haven’t seen enough of him for me to form any strong emotional connection to him. The show pretty much glossed over him so no insights there and the books still have a lot of explaining to do on that front. Although, That being said, I don’t really expect my opinion of him will improve if as the books continue

From what I’ve seen tho there are a lot of reason why people dislike him (I’ve got a list myself), but like you said in the grand scheme of asoiaf, he’s really not that bad. So why is there more anti Rhaegar discourse than anti-the Mountain (who is unquestionably worse) or less love for Rhaegar then Cersei (who has done also done worse)

My best guess is (and this is just my personal speculation), it has a lot in common with the reason people got so mad at Sansa in s8 (myself included) when she too really didn’t do anything that bad by GoT standards. In fact, it’s funny, you see a lot of people compare her to Cersei or Littlefinger in a derogatory light but those same people will actually like Cersei/Littlefinger. (I say those people when I maysled do this lol) Which I think, reveals it perfectly. Its about perception. It’s about how everyone else in the show reacts and how we the audience are supposed to “view” it.

People liked Cersei when she did dubious shit bc there was recognition that it was wrong. From other the characters, the narrative and the fans. Cersei did villainous shit and was a villain for it. Same with Joeffrey, the mountain, Littlefinger etc... Sansa on the other hand did villainous shit and... was rewarded for it? Got QiTN? Like it felt like we were supposed to view her coronation like Robb’s or Jon’s when it was really more like Cersei’s. And I know that pissed me off. If your going to have a good guy act like the villain, talk like the villain and dress like the villain then you need to recognize they aren’t a good guy anymore (sorry small tangent)

And I think Rhaegar falls into a somewhat similar situation. His reputation is surprising positive considering all the shit he’s pulled and I think that frustrates a lot of people. Especially when they hear people like Ser Barristan and Daenerys speak highly of him. It can certainly feel like his faults get glossed over for the image of the perfectly chivalrous prince, when just on the little we know, that can’t be right. And then the show glamorizing it probably just frustrates people even more.

And I would argue that not all the fans hate Rhaegar, I just think his haters tend to be surprisingly vocal about it. Like I know a lot of casual fans that love him bc they never bothered/cared to actually look closely at his behavior and just see a tragic “forbidden love” story. And then some that just don’t care or view him like you said as a sad tragic emo boy that needs love. But all that really does I think it as fuel to the discourse fire bc now not only do the characters not realize how dubious he was, but a good chunk of fans don’t know or don’t care either which can feel like he gets away with literally everythubg and can be a hero so long as he keeps the dashing prince vibes going.

Although I will say I think the narrative does at least recognize the truth, and as the series continue I think we’ll see a perspective shift as we’ll, but who knows when that will be.

Plus there’s the fact that despite being dead, Rhaegar still has so much impact on the story. And it’s pretty easy to hold the repercussions of his actions against him when you don’t actually get to understand him or see what he’s like. It’s hard to empathize with a character you never get to meet.

But Like I said, that’s just my conjecture. I’m in the same boat. I think Rhaegar’s kind of a dick but 🤷‍♀️ it’s GoT, who ain’t?

[enygma0710]

AMEN! First topic of Commiseration. have you too been accused of being a white feminist caping for your white fave by white Anti-Dany Stans? OML watching this happen to any Woman who dares to not love Sansa and love Dany instead is mind boggling. One of those two women was actually fighting for the people and defending their right to exist without chains or prejudice and it CERTAINLY WASNT A STARK.

Hey Anon, 

No, I haven’t been accused of this because I’m pretty open about being a black woman on my blog so that might be why but I have gotten into some very heated conversations irl where I had to channel my inner Malcolm X, Angela Davis and Huey P. Newton to educate those on my stance about Daenerys Targaryen. 

It’s sad in a fandom that you have to tear each other down when you can simply agree to disagree. Personally, I’m not going to waste my breath explaining why I’m down for Daenerys when the person isn’t going to listen or at least be open to a dialogue about it. I get that people have their faves but what you're not gonna do is try to justify slavery. That’s not fucking happening. period

Yes I cheered when Dany burned up the slavers, yes they were PoC but they were slavers...idc burn the bastards. Daenerys was sympathetic to Missandei and the other formerly enslaved because she understood them, was empathetic to their cause and saw that it was wrong.  

I’m starting to ramble so I'm gonna wrap this up LOL, season 8 was an overall clusterfuck and characters were assassinated left and right but whenever I see people being accused as you described, it reminds me of an old narrow-minded coworker, she use to always say “Why are you touchy about this, why are you touchy about that” and she would say some really off the wall shit that irked a lot of people. It wasn’t until she was called a certain racial slur by a patient that it clicked for her and she got it. (she is WoC, but not black) 

So unless you understand, have experienced, empathize or sympathize with the struggle, you can pass me with that bullshit... 

[winterisfinallyhere]

I'm Still Upset About Season 8

So I just realized I’m still upset about season 8. I mean, it’s been like 7 months and pretty much as soon as it was over I went “well okay, that sucked, now let’s just repress the last 2 season” and haven’t really reflected on it that much. Other than to just tell anyone that asked: “I hated it.”

As it is Christmas and the New Year will soon be upon us I’ve been thinking a lot about 2019 and the ups and downs. This brought me to ponder GoT again after all this time, and what went wrong.

I think I just kind of realized why pretty much anyone who is more than a casual fan of the show hated the end.

It’s not because it gave no one what they wanted. I mean this is, of course, part of it. (Seriously, mention one person who was rooting for Bran on the throne at the end! Who wanted Jon to kill Dany after promising her he was on her side? Bronn as the Master of Coin?)

My theory is simple: We all hate it because not only do we not get what we wanted (be that Jonsa, Dany on the throne, Braimie or Theon alive) but what we did get wasn’t anything.

Simply, we hate it, because nothing mattered.

Maybe that’s not so revolutionary to the rest of you. Maybe you all figured out why you felt so empty, why all fans, no matter who they were rooting for or hoping to die, did.

Nothing mattered.

And I wish it would have. Me, as a Jonsa and anti-Targ-restoration, would rather have had Dany on the throne married to Jon with boat-baby on the way if there could have been some sort of “the wheel can never be broken” everything just keeps on going and nothing really ever changes as the “message”.

And I think even the most hardcore Dany-stans would have preferred well-executed (political) Jonsa to the mess we got with Dany going Mad-Queen in two minutes, with maybe the message ending up being “the pack survives” or “Ned really did play the long game, huh” or something.

I would even have preferred Cerise as the End Boss Queen, somehow beating Dany, to what actually happened. Imagined that! Instead of Dany burning the city down, her dragons get shot down, the Golden Company kills the Unsullied and the episode ends with Dany being executed by the Mountain on Cercies orders.

Last episode is Tyrion, Sansa, Jon and the reaming folks rallying folks to once more to fight Cersei and maybe the show ends with the start of “the last battle” with Cercsie which we don’t get to see the outcome of, once more giving us the message of “nothing ever changes, the wars just keep going.”

Everyone dying at Winterfell as the Night King comes would be something too. Or everyone retreating to King’s Landing and then everyone dying there. Maybe killed by the NK, maybe killed by each other. That would have been an interesting ending.

I mean what we got was just a mess. A mess without meaning. A meaningless mess we all spent so many hours on.

And I’m not sure who to be angry with about it. DxD is an obvious one. GRMM too, because if he hadn’t told them “the ending” then DxD would have had to wrap it up in a way that fit the TV show. And as terrible as DxD are, that would have been better than two seasons trying to get everything to fit into GRMM ending. An ending to a very different and longer story than the show.

But the person, I’ve been the maddest at though, I’ve realized is probably myself.

Because I invested too much. I dedicated so many hours, read so many fan-theories, had my own, woke up at ungodly early hours to watch the episodes before work. I geeked out like I hadn’t in a decade during the year leading up to and during season 8. I went into the season with such high hopes, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, waiting for a brilliant conclusion to a brilliant show. And by the last episode, I had no feelings at all.

But as part of my new year's resolution I’ve decided I’m going to stop blaming myself for things that aren’t my fault. And it’s not my fault season 8 was a disappointment. It’s not my fault I decided to care about something, even if it was a TV, and it disappointed me.

It wasn’t my fault Game of Thrones’ ending sucked. And no matter how much I want to, I can’t change it. So like a bad relationship I’m now going to attempt to let go, heal and move on from the bad parts and remember the good parts.

Because one of my favorite things about Game of Thrones has actually been the community, the fandom. The messy often fractioned (and sometimes right out hostile) people that loved and invested in this show for years and years, just like me. We were all disappointed, betrayed in a sense, but we were still part of this thing. And we were part of it together. So you know...

I for one, can’t quite make myself fully regret getting into GoT. I wish at times I hadn’t but for all the bad, there has been a lot of good. I found a new OTS that never got a chance to show how great it could be (but those longing looks and the subtext will be forever in my heart), read so many smart metas on so many different things from movie lighting, to beauty and beast tropes, to power and story structure, found amazing fan art and talked and argued with people with so different opinions on so many different topics.

I also realized that it’s okay that my best friend and so many people love Dany because “the dragons are cool” and don’t like the Starks because they’re “boring” and that not everyone will invest as much into a TV show as I did. And that doesn't make me a wacky nerd (or maybe it does, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing). It just means we have different interests and one of mine is caring about theories about fictional worlds and characters that (inevitably) end up disappointing me. And that’s good. The world is full of people who love, hate, do, different things and that’s pretty neat.

So that’s what I’ve decided to take away from Game of Thrones. Maybe the show’s end was meaningless. But the community, the fans (and the amazing actors and crew that worked on the show) were, are, not meaningless.

We might, in fact, be the actual meaning of Game of Thrones.

Thinking about it like that makes things a little easier for me. It gives me hope and makes me feel like I didn’t waste time but rather invested it wisely, into something. That I contributed to something important. And I hope that all of you out there that have maybe despaired and felt something similar to me, will try to look at it this way too. Because the more we do that, the more meaning we will give it, and after all, isn’t that what we all want most? For it to have meant something?

(Also, If you felt this resonated with you, please reblog, to maybe help a disparaging GoT fan start the New Year off right).

[nyarnamaitar]

About that NYT article...

Emilia’s latest NYT article has pissed me off for a number of reasons, but I really don’t think it means that we should be anxious about Dany’s S8 arc. Or, in other words: dark!Dany won’t be a thing, FFS. I love the Dany/Jonerys fandom, but some of you really need to stop letting Dany antis’/J*nsa shippers’ rhetoric get to you.

I’ll try to break down my reasoning:

1. Apparently, Maureen Dowd, the author of the article, is quite infamous for her stance on real-life women. She poses as a feminist, yet she made quite the career out of bashing, amongst others, Hillary Clinton. This doesn’t mean that she hates Daenerys, but every piece of writing -- and certainly an opinion piece, which is what the NYT article is -- directly or indirectly reflects the author’s views and well, let’s just say that I’m... Wary of Dowd. I’ve seen Dany fans complain that this press tour has been overwhelmingly negative for Dany and while I agree that the Northern lords and their stans are wankers with shriveled up penises who need to get their priorities straight, I wouldn’t say S8′s promo has been that bad for Dany fans at all. Dany heavily figures in S8′s advertising, photoshoots, and trailers and most of this material consists out Dany and Jon as a couple.

2. The NYT article content that pisses me off the most are the comments on House Targaryen and how the Targaryens are equated with madness, which implies that Dany’s questionable leadership choices are a consequence of her parentage, which is... Problematic to say the least. One does not have to be mentally ill or have a mentally ill father to make bad choices. As not to stray off-topic too much, I’m just going to say that I really dislike the way this fandom talks about mental illness or how mental illness is capitalised upon to discredit a character one doesn’t like. However, going back to the NYT article, these anti Targaryen comments are almost exclusively the author’s and based on Dowd’s track record, I’m inclined to dismiss them. Having read Fire and Blood, ASoIaF fans -- or at least those with basic reader comprehension skills -- know that most of the Targaryens weren’t mad and that a lot of Targaryen kings have done good things for Westeros. 

3. As for Emilia’s comments, there are a number of things I want to address. 

(A) First of all, it seems like the Tarlys’ execution will be a big deal in S8 (*sigh*), which is why I think that when Emilia talks about Dany’s ‘Targaryen impulses’ (my words), she’s mostly talking about the loot train battle and the subsequent burning of the Tarlys. Although (and strangely enough) Dave Hill has come out and stated that Dany made the right call in executing Randyll and Dickon, the show is obviously using this scene to manufacture drama by teasing mad queen!Dany. I really wish this weren’t the case, but alas, it is. That being said, I still agree with Dave Hill. In-universe, the Tarlys’ execution wasn’t exceptional at all and it pisses me off that Dany gets shit for doing something lots of other characters have done, too. 

(B) I don’t think Emilia’s comments are entirely off the bat. Dany does have darker impulses and in the books, Dany herself is very much aware of them. She continuously questions her own judgement and sanity, which convinces me that she won’t ever become truly mad. Fuck that noise. 

(C) I find it... Unfortunate that Emilia’s buying into the House Targaryen = madness crap, but we should keep in mind that we don’t know the context of the interview, the amount of time Emilia received to adequately answer Dowd’s questions, etc. Plus, I’m quite fond of Emilia and I don’t want to bash her at all, BUT a lot of the GoT actors don’t have a particularly good grasp on their characters. Maisie’s interpretation of Arya is atrocious. Sophie’s comments on Sansa’s character arc are laughably bad (The warrior of Winterfell? Really?). And while Emilia loves Dany, she’s not an exception. She doesn’t know the lore as well as we, the fans, do. It’s sad, but it’s true.

So, in short: I don’t think the NYT article “proves” that dark!Dany/mad queen!Dany will be a thing in S8. I think it attemps to emphasise that Dany has darker impulses and that she’s made mistakes that will haunt her in S8, i.e. the execution of the Tarlys and its effect on Sam. I agree with the article in the sense that, yes, Dany is flawed — just like pretty much all of the ASoIaF/GoT characters are. However, I vehemently disagree with how the execution of the Tarlys is treated by both D&D and the anti Dany section of the GoT fandom.

Based on everything we've received so far, including BoatSexBaby’s and Friki’s spoilers, nothing indicates that Dany will become dark/darker in S8. The NYT article just serves to foment the GoT hype AND highlight the darker aspects of Dany’s character that the audience should already be familiar with. It doesn’t tell us anything particularly new about Dany’s arc and character in S8.

Plus, I don’t think we pay enough attention to the good things the NYT article has to say about Dany. It recognises the double standard female rulers have to face in Westeros; it praises Dany’s character arc and iconic status in the show; it ends on the note that if Donald Trump lived in Westeros, Dany would be the one to overthrow him, etc. These arguments are hardly negative and don’t point to dark!Dany/mad queen!Dany at all. 

So, while some parts of the NYT article are dumb (and even upsetting), I don’t think we should be very alarmed by them. My opinions on Dany’s character and storyline in S8 haven’t changed since the article’s publication and I truly believe we should all calm down a bit.

[confessionsofatvjunkie]

A non-shippers unbiased Jon-sa/erys opinion...

Okay, I know I’m not completely unbiased here, becasue I’m not much of a Dany fan (and won’t be until she starts being honest about her intentions). BUT since all of my shipping energy is devoted to Braime and Gendrya I just don’t have anything left for other ships! Because of this I am neither Team Jonsa or Team Jonerys, but it has become such a huge part of the fandom its hard not to form an opinion. 

First I think its important to make sure we’re separating our actors from our characters, because while Kit has great chemistry with both Sophie and Emilia, JON has great chemistry with Sansa, but watching him with Dany last season was about as exciting as watching paint dry...

I’ll come back to that, but let’s start with Jonsa first: 

I’m really not here for anymore incest in GoT, and while I know that technically they’re only cousins and not siblings, they were still raised in the same home as half brother and sister, even though they didn’t have much of a relationship in their youth. However, detractors of this ship who use their familial relationship to completely write off the the ship are forgetting a little something... GRRM. He doesn’t seem to have to have the same compunction about this topic as the anti’s do, in his original outline for the books he had a storyline where Arya (yikes, I can’t even think about it!) and Jon fall in love and are tortured by this love UNTIL they find out about Jon’s true parentage. Now we know he moved on from that storyline, but did he move on, or just pivot? Another part of the original outline was that Arya was going to be part of an unwitting love triangle, as Tyrion, who abandons his family to fight on the side of the Stark's develops feelings for her, albeit unrequited... now can we think about a different Stark family member that GRRM pivoted a messy, and complicated relationship with Tyrion to? So if he salvaged some semblance of his original outline by transferring plot points to Sansa, its not out of the question that he would do the same for other plot points. Also people who say there’s no canonical evidence for Jonsa are choosing not to pay attention. I mean, you don’t gaze longingly at your “sister’s” lips, after kissing her on the forehead! Go find the gif, I’m not kidding, he kisses her forehead, looks her in the eye’s then looks down at her lips, and just pauses there! Anti’s you might not want it to happen, but it very possibly could happen 

Now, onto Jonerys: 

(I know they’re technically related too, but they weren’t raised together, so it doesn’t factor into my opinion, thats just what this ridiculous show has done to me!!) I know I said I’m not much of a Dany fan, but I’m going to put that aside, and just look at the evidence provided to us in the show. I think Jon and Dany’s relationship, as presented in season 7 is legit, meaning I’m not really here for the political!jon theories (not because it’s not an interesting idea, I just don’t think D&D are that creative)... so, I think Jon comes to care about Dany (yes, even if he also cares for Sansa - you can have feelings for two people at once) and I think Dany’s feelings for Jon are also real. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are end game, it just means that going into the last season we’re going to see from Dany where her true priorities lie. When she learns there is a surviving Targaryen that has a more legitimate claim to the throne than she does (this is putting aside the fact that I don’t think she has a claim at all, nor does Jon for that matter - but that’s a topic for a different post, lol!) this is the moment that will tell us what kind of person Dany is, and will end up being. She’s either going to acknowledge the claim, or fight against it - there’s really no other option. If she fights against it then I don’t exactly see their relationship surviving that? So she’ll have to decide if love or power is what she wants more. Now I think if D&D had 100% say over how the show ends then they’d have Jon, despite learning of his parentage, “give” the throne to Dany, or at least marry her and rule together (I’ve not seen such huge Dany stan’s as D&D since Jorah!!) Dany would be the hero!! But since we know they’re beholden to GRRM’s ending for the books, I think he’s got a little more imagination than that. I don’t know if Dany will go all Mad Queen, I don’t even necessarily think she’d be a bad ruler (though I do agree with Daario that’s she’s more of a conqueror than a ruler, but  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) but I just don’t think GRRM would end his series so predictably. The only reason I think Jon should “win” is becasue he doesn’t want to rule, and in stories like this it’s always the people who have leadership thrust upon them that do the best job, the one’s who rule because its the right thing to do, and not out of a lust for power. By that estimation I’d be just as happy if Sam, or Gendry, or Davos ended up King (actually Davos would make a great King... side note, this blog is now a Davos for King blog, lol) Okay, I said before I’d get back to the “watching paint dry” comment, and here it it, its true, they were boring! I’m sorry, I just didn’t buy their courtship AT ALL in season 7, again I don’t think this is purposeful i.e. Jon hiding some secret plot, I just think it was a matter of pacing. We’re so used to watching things move so slowly on this show, that to slam all that happened between them in season 7 into just 7 episodes, it just wasn’t believable to me, and all the “he’s not in love with me” and “I’ve seen you staring at her heart *wink, wink*” moments felt so forced. I think because of the pace, we weren’t able to enjoy any pining, or build up, it was, “look here’s our two stars, aren’t they pretty? They’re gonna bang”... then they did. I just wasn’t here for it, and the actors didn’t seem to be either, hence the paint drying boredom of their performances.

tl/dr: Yes, Jonerys is real, but that doesn’t mean its end game... and yes Jonsa could happen. But I don’t really care either way, I just want Jaime to kiss Brienne, and Gendry to get Arya all flustered by calling her m’lady in front of her family, and Davos is King now, that a new rule I just made but is a good rule! Okay, bye!

[occupyvenus]

@doublehex replied to your post “Actual footage of aegony stans popping a bottle of champagne...”

You make it seem as if only J0nerys shippers bought into it. BryndenBFish thought it was a legit interview at first, and he was someone that has poured over most of GRRM's interviews. The way the interviewer wrote his responses were very cleaver. And it was written by no means a Jonsa shipper, because the Jonsa answer was just one small part about it. Get off your high horse and take a chill pill.

How about you get off my post and take a red pill that takes you back to reality? 

I do not make it seem like only J0nerys shippers bought into it. I specifically made fun of the specific group of people (mostly J0nerys shippers) who used this interview as “prove” to debunk Jonsa and celebrated the “death of the delusional crackship” before getting all their facts straight. Yes, while the Jonsa passage was only a small part of the interview, I made fun of the people who only cared about this “small part” and made a big deal about it. Weak reading comprehension, much? Would explain a lot of things. 

As a lot of other people, I didn’t dismiss the interview right away either, that would be just as biased as buying into it without any further questions. I thought maybe the “interviewer” had some personal connection to GRRM and he did them a solid by talking with them. I read the entire thing, while considering the problems that arise with automated translation and compared his statements with some he’s made before. I actually took my time to apply some critical thinking skills before forming a final opinion. The post was not directed at people like BryndenBFish (btw, what’s with the appeal to authority? People can’t think for themselves unless someone with supposed “higher credentials” gives them the green light to do so?) who did the same thing, who wasn’t sure about it’s legitimacy, but actually looked into it before drawing any final conclusions, but at the gullible, biased idiots who never learned to not believe everything they read on the internet. So what is your point exactly? 

Btw, I retain the right to make fun of the people who didn’t even bother to look into it before making hateful, condescending, snarky posts because there were so many things that should make everyone capable of critical thinking at least a bit sceptical: 

An exclusive interview with a high-caliber author is published on some random, unknown blog? 

Why didn’t a “professional journalist” sell that thing to some news media, actually making some profit with their supposed profession?

Why wouldn’t the author at least take one picture with grrm?  

One tiny little google session would’ve showed that this “interview” wasn’t picked up by any verified news outlet. 

Neither westeros.org, nor the asoiaf wikia picked it up either. They’re usually pretty fast with that. Most interviews show up a few hours after they were published. Maybe because the administrators have connection to grrm and his pr-team themselves and are aware of any upcoming interviews? 

The interview has no links to grrm’s blog, twitter, his official website and their was no mention of that interview on all these outlets either. 

The interview was ill-formatted and the blog itself looks rather shitty. Not a sign of professionalism. 

Why would GRRM agree to making interview that was only going to be published in Spanish? Why would GRRM agree to making an interview with such a low-profile outlet at all? 

Those were at least a couple of things that seemed fishy about the circumstances of the “release”. If that wasn’t enough to at least raise one of your eyebrows, there are couple of things about the content that an attentive reader could/should have noticed:

George is praising D&D? After politely redirecting any questions about them with neutral answers? After throwing some epic shade at them not two months ago? (Like, he has no time to watch “his own show”, but fangirls about another? Sick burn, george.)

GRRM has never outright denied any fantheories. Here he takes strong stances about Azor Ahai and Jon’s endgame romantic partner. This isn’t about me being a pressed shipper, it simply isn’t in line with his previous reactions to questions like this. Do you remember the dubious, unambiguous way he talked about S@nsan in the past? He didn’t confirm it, he didn’t completely deny it. He 

While we’re at the topic of the jonsa-passage, he contradicts himself numerous times here alone, for example: Well, in my books Jon Snow is dead ... but to find out about his possible relationship with Dany you have to keep reading. Any romantic relationship is very unlikely, because they only share a siblingy bond ... but Jon and Sansa don’t even have that. Like, what? Sounds awfully like a rehash of your usual anti-jonsa arguments, don’t you think? The creator of the whole series has no more to say than your average redditor? 

Btw, Grrm honestly reacting to a question involving his original outline? When has that ever happened?  

I remembered that Medusa interview, I don’t remember any news about it being fake. But in this interview it’s presented as fact and common knowledge?  

GRRM answers a question about Arya by talking about how she isn’t like Sansa? Sounds less like him and more like your typical reddit douchebag. 

Btw, he talks about revenge and it’s downfalls, but doesn’t bring up Lady Stoneheart? A character about whose non-inclusion in the show bugs him so much, he talks about her significance to the narrative every chance he gets? 

At one point he emphasized that Jon is dead in the books, but later doesn’t correct the “interviewer” when she calls Jon a king? How is Jon a king in the books, btw? Or would GRRM really confirm in an interview that Jon will become KITN in the books too? Seems like an obvious mix up of book and show canon to me. 

Another instance of this is him taking Cersei as an example that women can rule in Westeros, when talking about Asha. In the books, Cersei does not rule in her own right, she rules through her son. This is no correct comparison to Asha becoming queen of the Iron Islands, at least not for current book-canon. And Goerge doesn’t discuss show canon. 

Just in general, many, many answers don’t hold up to the usual intellectual level displayed in his interviews.  

He says Jon Snow isn’t a hero, that every question about right and wrong depends on which side you are own, - which sounds a lot like him - but “regarding Dany, deserving something because you're a good person doesn’t mean you will obtain it?” Biased, much? 

GRRM confirms a couple of characters as bisexual, some very surprising candidates included, but doesn’t mention those who have relationships with both men and women in canon like Ellia, or even Jon ?

George names a rather specific release date for Winds of Winter? 

Those are only a few things I remember. If I went through this glorious clusterfuck one more time, I’m sure to find more. There are so many things in this “interview” that stick out, but in the name of fairness, let’s look at some of the things that seemed convincing:

Some passages successfully copied Grrm’s way of speaking. 

Some statements were in line with grrm’s usual style of answering spoilery questions. (You have to keep reading, the show is the show and the books are  the books etc)

No one could be batshit crazy enough to seriously fake an interview with GRRM. 

Sry, if all these red flags didn’t lead you to even do a bit of investigating, if instead, your first reaction was to make petty posts about “jonsa being dead” and “grrm killing jonsa” you deserve to be made fun of. Should I give you a pat on the back for focusing solely on the few things that seemed legit, while completely dismissing everything that pointed to the opposite?

Sry not sry, but after being called “delusional” for shipping Jonsa, despite bringing up a bunch of compelling arguments, while your strongest argument against it is screaming DELUSIONAL!!!,  after being told “to seek professional help” thousands of time, I have absolutely no problem with pointing out the mass delusion that these assholes suffered from the last day. Payback’s a bitch. I actually made another post about why this whole surreal situation is so endlessly funny to me, and it has nothing to with people “who AT FIRST thought this as a legit interview”, before taking a closer look and realizing that it’s most likely forgery (like your weak argumentative shield BryndenBFish did). 

It’s because of the sheer hypocrisy and the delicious irony: 

J*nerys-stans and co were so desperate to discredit us “delusional crackshippers” that they took some random interview on some random blog with  zero credentials, something that seemed fishy to anyone who took 5 minutes to clearly think about it, but instead they just swallowed it like a bowl of dramatic rice, because they were so excited about proving that other people are “delusional” and I just can’t. This morning there were dozens of posts celebrating that the “delusional jonsa stans will finally shut up about their delusional crack ship” and now they’re the ones whining about being called delusional and how unfair and inappropriate that is and, fuck, payback’s a bitch. Like, you gotta appreciate the fucking irony of the situation.

Never forget the blessed Halloween of 2k17 when antis got a taste of their own medicine. The dramatic rice remember.

Now pop in the blue pill and go back to the matrix where jonsa-shippers are the “delusional” ones, who only see what they want to see”. That’s the only place where you people can still pretend that jonsa-shippers are the ones who lack critical thinking skills. I’ll be enjoying the view from my high horse, thank you. 

Actual footage of you, thinking you can get one over me with that weak ass comment.

[phosphorescent-naidheachd]

_____ said:

on one level i will always enjoy watching a cool lady ride jon's face or w/e so i am not anti-dany getting some of the old King In The North. otoh - the whole epic meet cute destined thing is too grand for me. it's like an archetype? i prefer how rooted and grounded and layered jon/sansa is as a ship - everything has resonance and a kind of unexpected joy, like Persuasion, where neither person thought they could repair the past and find happiness and yet happiness is there for them. it's just more my jam. i hope jonsa shippers have enough to work with for fic purposes after the show ends

another thing - i wish dany could have a male family member who doesn't want to bang her, especially given that monster of a brother she had... jon is a wonderful family member. i wish they could have been that to each other 

^^^

I’m not inherently against J0n3rys -- written as an epic ‘our fates were written in the stars long before our birth’ archetypical relationship or not -- as long as it’s executed in such a fashion that feels true to the characters and that resonates emotionally with me... but I highly doubt D&D are going to manage to do that. I have approximately 0.12% trust in them as writers/directors and that’s a generous estimate. Add in the fact that D&D have a fairly limited amount of screen time to build a J0n3rys relationship up from nothing, and the chances of D&D sacrificing true character/relationship development on the altar of expediency rise considerably... as do the chances for an increased amount of ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing’. Just my opinion, though.

GRRM isn’t perfect, but -- partially because of the medium, partially due to his own skills -- his writing of the J0n3rys relationship will doubtless be a lot more nuanced and believable when the characters finally meet in the books.

Actually, one thing that’s really neat about Jon’s relationship with Dany (and with Sansa, among a few other characters!) is all of the narrative parallels and contrasts drawn between their individual experiences. I recently read a piece that argued that GRRM isn’t just deconstructing fantasy tropes with ASOIAF, he’s also very much reconstructing them -- “not tearing the genre apart so much as reminding readers of why it was worth falling in love with in the first place” -- and that really struck me. I like to think that if J0n3rys does end up being endgame in the books, GRRM will use his particular “existential brand of romanticism” to make that archetype feel fresh and real and worthwhile.

Ughhh, I feel you there. Dany deserves kind, platonic, supportive family members. Like Jon, she’s always had a strong longing for a home and family and belonging, and Jon (and through him, perhaps some of the other Starks too) could really fill that role well under the right circumstances. Which isn’t to say that he couldn’t still fill that familial role in a romantic/sexual capacity, but it’s not quite the same thing, y’know? As you said, Dany has never really had someone love her who doesn’t want to bang her (maybe Missandei, but I always thought there was a faintly femslashy subtext between the two of them on the show), and I think it would be good for her to have that kind of relationship in her life.

My feelings re: show!J0n3rys are a lot more complicated than my feelings re: book!J0n3rys, mainly because my feelings re: show!Dany herself are very conflicted. I think most of the criticisms leveled at Dany by the fandom contain validity, but I also think that most of those criticisms are also strongly influenced by fandom’s sexism/misogyny and its attendant double standards. I think that Dany -- both in the books and on the show -- is a very complex character, and frankly I don’t think D&D really get that; I think they see her purely as The Once Underdog, Now Conquering Heroine(TM), and that the GOT narrative is going to reflect this sadly limited viewpoint.

I have a lot of sympathy for Dany’s position and understand why she acts as she does; her traumatic past and the culture(s) in which she was brought up have absolutely shaped who she is today: her fears, her desires, and her methods of achieving those desires. I would also argue that although show!Dany is pretty self-centered, she generally has good intentions. Nonetheless, I’ve become less and less a fan of show!Dany over the years. I have issues with some of the choices she’s made, with her frequent (albeit unintentional on her part) hypocrisy, and with the racist undertones both GRRM and D&D have (accidentally?) inserted into some of her major story arcs (indeed, to the point where I have a hard time mentally separating her from said arcs). If Dany undergoes further character growth that positively alters how she acts going forward, my feelings towards her may change again, but in the meantime… I don’t know. As I said: it’s complicated, and my thoughts about her sometimes even vary from episode to episode. (Heaven knows my thoughts & feelings re: Tyrion and Jaime often shift depending on the episode lol. But that’s a topic for another time.)

I don’t want to see Dany humiliated and humbled, the way many antis do, but I also don’t want to see her as she currently is on the Iron Throne, the way most stans do. I don’t believe she’s insane or currently in danger of becoming insane, as many antis think, nor do I believe that she’s an unusually cruel/terrible/[insert negative term here] ruler and warrior for the society in which she lives. However, none of this makes her inherently the best person to rule Westeros, either. 

Although it isn’t entirely Dany’s fault, she knows almost nothing about Westeros -- past or present -- and what little she does know was understandably given to her through a pretty pro-Targaryen lens; this lack of understanding of facts -- and more crucially, of attitudes -- will serve her (and more importantly Westeros) very poorly if she ever becomes Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Yes, having Westerosi advisors can help, but only so much. The monarchy of Westeros doesn’t seem to have much in the way of checks and balances, after all, outside of ‘it’s probably not a good idea to offend any of the major Houses too badly and definitely not multiple Houses at the same time’. Dany is still relatively inexperienced at ruling and is certainly more than capable of learning and improving... the question is whether she’ll allow herself to. Especially now that she has the ultimate power in the form of fully-grown dragons, which makes it even more difficult and dangerous to question or challenge her actions than it would a dragonless monarch like Robert Baratheon.

(Although, since we’re mentioning Robert Baratheon... I get the sense that Dany, like Robert, much prefers the fighting and ceremonial parts of being monarch over the day-to-day administrative parts. YMMV.)

It’s my opinion that Dany has gotten increasingly good at convincing herself that her personal desires are actually selfless and/or inevitable, that her way is the Right Way, that too much compromise is weakness, and that an increased volume and degree of violence on her part is both justified and necessary. This is an excellent piece of meta on the subject; although it’s about book!Dany, it’s still by and large applicable to show!Dany too... in fact, I would argue that in many ways, it’s even more applicable to show!Dany. Dany isn’t the only “good” character in ASOIAF/GOT to harden herself to violence or to make some of these sorts of mistakes, of course -- Jon probably would have been an even bigger disaster if he’d somehow wound up as the ruler of Meereen, for instance -- but that doesn’t remove the validity of these criticisms towards her, either.

Actually, speaking of Jon and Dany, there’s one argument that antis make that really bugs me: that Jon was chosen by his people, while Dany chose herself; meritocratic monarchy vs. hereditary monarchy, if you will. It’s not entirely wrong, but it’s not the full story either. Davos falls prey to this same trap when talking to Dany on Dragonstone, in fact: "He's not King in the North because of his birthright, he has no birthright, he's a damn bastard. He's King in the North because those hard sons of bitches believe in him."

I mean, yes, Jon was chosen by his nobles to be their king, and they do believe in him, but you can’t act like his heredity didn’t play a significant role in that decision. If Jon hadn’t been the ostensible son of Ned Stark, do you really think all the nobles of the North would have called for him to be King, no matter how worthy he was or how much they believed in him? Just look at part of Lyanna Mormont’s speech, for crying out loud [italics my own]: “I don’t care if he’s a bastard. Ned Stark’s blood runs through his veins. He’s my king, from this day until his last day!” *rolls eyes* But I digress. 

Moving on to address your comments on Jon/Sansa:

Unlike many J0nsa shippers here on tumblr, I don’t think J0nsa is ever going to be canon. Definitely not on the show, and probably not in the books either. And I’m mainly OK with that; that’s what fanfiction is for, after all. (Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t be delighted to be proved wrong re: canon lol.) 

I’m very much a multi-shipper in GOT/ASOIAF, and my main fannish wish is that my favorite characters survive to the end of the series. Ideally, none of them irrevocably betray other characters I care about and they all survive and they’re all at least marginally happy, but that’s probably way too much to ask. As I said, I’ll take ‘alive’. Because as long as they’re still alive, a happier ending is still a possibility somewhere ‘off-screen’ after the series ends. Dead, on the other hand, is dead. Sure, I can create AU ‘so-and-so-lives’ headcanons, but I’m still acutely aware that they’re AUs, y’know? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yessss, Persuasion is such a great comparison! There’s something very bittersweet and healing about that kind of ship. Shades of a shared past paired with hope for a better shared present and future. The gradual realization that it isn’t too late to find/create happiness. idk, I just have a lot of feelings about this dynamic.

[graywolfqueens]

a gentle reminder to my followers who are into game of thrones:

i do not like danielle

i do like jon snow

i vehemently hate the two of them together and will continue to do so even if it becomes canon

same goes for jonny boy and sansa

(i do generally like sansa tho)

i will not budge on these topics

if you would like to talk to be about my dislike of danielle, messages are the place to do that, not my ask

i have no desire to start a discourse

i dont want you to tell me i should change my mind, all its gonna do is make me care even less

if you have issues with the above, i don’t tag danielle at all because her stans have flooded my ask before and its annoying, but i will use the anti-tag for anti posts about that ship, feel free to blacklist, or like... unfollow me i guess if you hate it that much??

i just want everyone to get a heads up cause like, i like to use tumblr to rant and ranting might come depending on what happens next week

[occupyvenus]

Great post - "about why Jonsa of all ships is so bitterly thought about" and I think your really nailed a lot of the key factors, especially how the San/San people like Sansa, are more likely book readers and can accept the Jonsa ship maturely. There is definitely a pathological hatred of Sansa that drives the fanaticism against her being with Jon. You really captured a lot of the thinking (if you can call it thinking!) on a tv forum I've been following for about a year. People literally (1/2)

will dream up any reason to keep Sansa away from Jon. There is essentially a subculture that allows the Jon/Ary@ ship and the Jon/D@ny ship to coexist. Even kind of support each other. Dany might die and then Arya and Jon will raise the Targcest baby together. Pretty crazy stuff. Anyway thanks for writing so clearly on this topic. (2/2)

First of all … that was supposed to say FOUGHT ABOUT!!! NOT THOUGHT ABOUT!!!  WHY JONSA OF ALL SHIPS IS SO BITTERLY FOUGHT ABOUT!!!

I lower my head in shame, while contemplating my bad habit of never proof-reading the stuff I write. But as the previous anon so correctly pointed out my spelling isn’t exactly top-notch. Most of the time it’s honestly  p r e t t y  bad. If words sound somewhat similar, by stupid brain assumes they’re interchangeable. Seven hells.

Though I think this - Sansa being regarded as a side character or at best, the least important main character - also explains why Jonsa isn’t seen as a possibility by the general fandom, not just the radical antis. People look at the infamous original outline, believing that Sansa never gained any real importance as a character since then, like she was just allowed to tag along with the “real” key five (Arya, Bran, Dany, Jon and Tyrion). She was supposed to marry Joffrey and die at some point and the crazy folks think she’ll not even survive but also get THE MALE LOVE-INTEREST?  I suppose, to people who don’t realize (or don’t want to admit) that Sansa was “upgraded” to key-status (GRRM always includes her when talking about the most important characters nowadays), any serious theory that claims she could be Jon’s grand love interest sounds as implausible as if it was … idk, Arianne or Brienne or whoever. Those two are great and all, but Jon Snow is on an entirely different level when it comes to significance to the narrative. Why would he of all people end up with some puny side-character? Shouldn’t that “honor” go to one of the real heroines? Makes sense. It’s not just the people who actively hate on Sansa, but also those who simply don’t care much about her character. 

I guess you call this hypothesis “Why Jonsa of all ships is so bitterly FOUGHT about and/or not taken seriously”. 

I’m honestly not an expert on what’s going on between the other camps (ie the general attitude between J0nry and J0nerys shippers), but according to my experience these two subgroups (together with the Sansa/P€tyr shippers) make up the majority of devoted jonsa-haters and put forth the most obsessed ones as well. If I remember correctly, a few years back before canon!jonsa gained so much momentum those two groups weren’t getting along nicely either. There was a lot of bickering about who’s more important (Ary@ is grrm’s fav!, D@ny has dragons and all, so shut your piehole!), mixed up with some shipping wank and as far as I can tell (as I said, I have a very limited perspective on this. I don’t really interact with either group), that has gotten a bit better since Sansa entered the stage as another key female character. What do people say? The enemy of my enemy … 

I don’t think that shipping is super important to asoiaf, I care about the story first and was pretty indifferent to it before I jumped on board the Jonsa ship, but I do think that we’ll get one “main” romance between two “main” characters. It would simply make sense to me, Grrm was never shy about including romantic love in his works, even if it was never the main focus. Now, this will more likely than not end in tragedy, but since asoiaf can be read as a coming of age story for at least 5 of the key six, and settling down with a spouse and a couple of kids is one common way to end such a story, maybe that will belong to the “sweet” part of the bittersweet ending. Idk, anything’s possible. (Btw, I don’t count Sansa and Tyrion’s marriage as a “romance” for obvious reasons.) If you don’t subscribe to the idiotic assumption that Jon and D@ny are the “real” real main characters and assume that all six are of equal importance … why is shipping either of them (other than the biological siblings, perhaps, that would be a bit weird even by grrm standards), less legit than the other? (Of course, if you do subscribe to this assumption, there probably only exists one “legitimate” pairing in your opinion. In which case, no argument about this could ever be solved until finding a common denominator to this question of principle, so why even bother…)

If one of the male characters can be seen as the “romantic lead” it would be Jon (grrm even sorta confirmed this in his “fake” -lol- medusa interview), simply because Bran is just a kid and Tyrion, well some people will accuse me of ableism, but I don’t get any “romantic lead” vibes from him. Not because he’s a dwarf, because he’s the only “grownup” of the key six. So everyone can keep any accusations to themselves. I also don’t think that Grrm will stride away from hetero-love, to be honest. HE COULD. But I don’t think he will. That leaves us with the three possibilities mentioned above: Jon and one of the leading ladies. I think it’s rather inevitable that that will happen. 

But when it comes to the ladies … things simply aren’t as clear. They’re all similar of age, neither of them is closely related to Jon (at least, not THAT closely related), they could all work. I obviously don’t like J0nerys, but I can totally understand why so many people believe in it. I would maybe even ship J0nrya a bit, if it wasn’t almost impossible to find shippers who don’t hate on Sansa/Jonsa. And I would never call either of those groups “delusional” because it basically comes down to personal preference and a couple of other factors, most notably how you judge the future projective of these three characters. 

I also hate the assumption that J0nerys is the only pairing with solid foreshadowing in the books. I read the books a few times, all j0nerys meta I could find, plenty of J0nrya ones and, well, I don’t have to talk about all the jonsa-metas I’ve consumed xD. Trying to remain as unbiased as possible, there’s an almost equal amount of foreshadowing for all of them. I simply came to the conclusion that Sansa is the most likely candidate because a) I’m pretty sure D@ny will go dark and there will be a targbowl of sorts. She could just as easily be a love interest, as she could be an adversary. b) The age-gap between Ary@ and Jon is a bit too big for my liking. Especially at their current canon age. Also I love them siblings so much. And c) Sansa’s upgrade and the drastic change in her narrative must have a reason. Martin liking the idea of tormented pseudo-incest, and the reveal of Jon’s parentage making such a relationship “proper” but deciding to emphasize the brotherly bond between Jon and Ary@ and “using” Sansa’s character as the love interest instead simply makes sense to me. 

But I only came to this conclusion because I consider Sansa to be of equal importance. It’s more or less a precondition of even consider Jonsa, even more so to ship it in a canon kind of way. 

Now, to put an end to this little rant and get back to the original topic, D@ny and Ary@ stans regularly accuse Sansa of “stealing their narrative” or at least “Sansa-stans want her to have it all”, so it’s no surprise that they a) don’t want her to be key player and b) subsequently don’t want her / can’t see her ending up with Jon. There are a few very great posts out there dealing with the issue why Sansa is hated so much, but I think it comes down to (to get off topic one more time, because it’s my speciality)

Misogyny. Feminine characters always attract a lot of unwarranted hate (female characters and general, but at least on tumblr … one can undeniably see a certain trend), more so the ones who don’t take off their clothes. There’s this really nice post going around that as a female character you either have to a) be a sex object or b) act like a man. I would link to it if only I could find it. I’m not going to add much to this, it has been talked about many times. 

You can’t live vicariously through her. Sansa’s narrative often is … very frustrating. Nobody “wants to be Sansa”. People want to be the rebellious, fighting girl who doesn’t take any shit, they want to be the mother of dragons who goes around the world freeing slaves, they want to be Jon kicking some White Walker ass, they want to be the future three-eyed-raven (though Bran is seriously underappreciated by the fandom), they want to be a smart ass know it all, like Tyrion. They don’t want to be the girl stuck in situations she has almost no means of escaping. The sad truth to this is though, most people, if they found themselves in the same situation, “would be Sansa”. Most people aren’t active heros who fight against the unjust system all the time, most people aren’t geniuses, or brave enough to put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of other all the time. I actually fell in love with Sansa’s character because of that. (Though I have to admit myself, I was rather indifferent to her character for partially those exact reasons myself). It’s refreshing and a honest take on human nature to have a heroine who mostly has to resort to endurance and passive resistance. Mostly, not always. I don’t subscribe to “Sansa is weak and useless” weekly. Don’t get me wrong. She’s awesome and badass in her right, it’s just a bit harder to notice and appreciate. In this aspect she’s probably the most “realistic” character of the key six and people don’t like to read the truth about themselves. They wanna read about what they want to and could be. 

People are projecting. HARD. I spent a lot of time wondering why Sansa gets so much shit for her “evil deeds and traits”, in a series where people kill other people, shove children out of windows, burn people alive, rape a slave prostitute, and so on and so forth. And you know what? It’s easier to “forgive” those things because they are so absolutely horrendous. All these things are so far removed from our everyday reality (for most people at least), that it severs our emotional connection to it. Don’t get me wrong, we can still judge their behaviour, we can still emphasize with the victims, but we have no personal experience to connect to. But Sansa’s “villainous characteristics” (especially those of s1/agot)? An ignorant, privileged white girl who is mean to her little sister for being different, is caught up in some naive classicism, does stupid shit because she has a crush on some asshole everyone else could sniff out a mile away and always has to be so fucking perfect all the time. NOW THAT IS A “BAD GUY” WE KNOW! That’s a “villain” we all encountered in real life. To put this in different terms: I’ve never been pushed out a window for witnessing a incestous relationship between two people of high social standing (nor has anyone close to me), but have I felt victimized by my sister being the pretty, perfect girl, while I was the loud, unruly, unattractive tomboy? Yeeeeeeeeeeees. Have I ever actually lived through the experience of my elder sister getting nicer gifts than me, because “I would just break them”? Yeeeeeeeeeeeesss again. I grew out of it after elementary school, of course (okay, to be completely honest here, I might have still struggled with it during puberty, but thank god that’s also behind me). This also works the other way around: I have never been in the situation of “having” to push a kid out of a window, because it witnessed my incestous relationship and I, my sister-lover and our three children would lose their heads if he told anyone. I’ve never had slave master nail 163 children to crosses to piss me off. Idk, man. I have no idea what I would do. I never had to deal with shit like this. Who am I to judge? But then people look at the “mean” things Sansa did and go I WOULD NEVER EVER EVER. (though they probably did at some point in their life). 

Since this is tumblr, I have to note something: I don’t think this applies to everyone who dislikes Jonsa. I don’t think that everyone who dislikes Jonsa also dislikes Sansa. I’m not even saying that everyone dislikes Sansa for the reasons listed above. Before you accuse me of any of this, make sure you didn’t fall victim to a logical fallacy. I had enough of those lately. Those are just a few of my personal observations and conclusions, that I think, apply to quite a few people. If your reasonings and opinions are completely different, great, I’m not arguing, just don’t give me any shit about it.

So to draw some final conclusion for this long ass post: Jonsa of all ships is so bitterly fought about and/or not taken seriously, because a) Sansa attracts a lot of hate for several reasons, b) Sansa is considered to be too unimportant to be the “romantic lead” kind of main character grand love interest.

Shipping Jonsa is not “delusional” if you a) consider all three lead ladies to be of equal significance and b) don’t dislike Sansa. (Though since this is Tumblr, I might point it out one more time: This does not mean that anyone this applies to also ships Jonsa. This does not mean that this doesn’t also apply to people who don’t ship Jonsa. This does not mean that only people who stan Sansa hard ship Jonsa - I myself actually started shipping it because I staned Jon so much and I need my baby to be happy. Some people who fulfill both a) and b) might still believe that Jonsa shipper are “delusional” simply because it’s the common narrative of a big portion of the fandom.)

… Now that I think about this, the entire question could have been answered with the last paragraph alone, but you know how we do, go big or go home.