#would she scheme against her own brother because she doesn't think he's fit to rule or make trusted decisions? no!! the fuck!!

[northsballadmoved]

me physically gagging when i'm forced to see any of sansa's characterization from s8

[agentrouka-blog]

A crazy idea now I had. You know we are pretty sure D@ny coming to Westeros will be after Aegon became king in the south. It will be a sort of Dance 2.0 and there are a lot of parallels, like Barristan becoming Criston 2.0 but worse (he will die much far away from home, in a battle that nobody in Westeros care, no song will be sung for the once most admired knight of his time).

I have been trying to think about others parallels while understanding what's going to happen, using the show and looking at what was mixed and one thing always makes me frown is Varys goal around here, looking at what we had in the books and what we saw in the show.

So, reading Dance, we have the "turncloakers" that went from green to black or from black to green, and we have interesting characters too, like Corlys Velaryon and Larys Strong, and I can see Varys a "good" mix of them. And what do they do? They, supposedly, murdered Aegon after he killed his sister, whatever their motives.

In the show, Varys wished to see D@ny as the saviour, but after witnessing her tyrany, and meeting the Starks (and learning about Jon) he decides to kill her. It's subtly established, when one of his birds report about D@ny not eating the food, and he saying that they would try again. What? Posion her? Yup

So, what if after D@ny/Rh@ny (Maegor With Tits) murders Aegon, Varys becomes part of her Council (he helped Tyri0n escape, he may help him gain her trust) and even if D@ny is mad at Illyrio (probably dead), she may accept him in her circle. And that would be her ending.

What if then we have another parallel of Dance. D@ny dies mysteriously. Jon went to kill her after learning about his half-brother's death and is afraid of her menace to the rest of his family/Sansa, and is a) accused of killing her (Varys killed Kevan with a weapon, what is stopping him from killing her in the chest with a sword, dagger, crossbow) or b) he does a Cregan 2.0 and has to organize the wastelands of Westeros as the heir of the IT.

Idk, I just have this on my mind mostly from Varys plots in the show and his scenes in the books...

Hi there and sorry for the delay in responding!

Generally I agree that if Varys doesn't meet his end in connection to Aegon himself, he'll be one aspect of conspiracy-making around Dany one way or the other.

But I don't think that GRRM would give him the role of ending Dany.

There's too little thematic connection there. These aren't characters who have been known to each other and moving in a shared political constellation for enough time to make a murder like that seem like a meaningful conclusion to her arc. It's not a cynical, opportunistic political scheme that ultimately ends in a new status quo for the Targaryen dynasty. The Dance 1.0 eliminated the dragons as a factor but it reestablished the Targaryens as the ruling dynasty, incest and Valyrian supremacy and all. The ultimately futile and destructive scheming fits that very well.

That will not be the case when Dany dies, when King's Landing is a pile of ashes, when the dragons are ended once again as a factor. This will be their absolute end, clad in the imagry of apocalyptic destruction. High drama. The mode by which it comes about is likely to be thematically drenched in why that's a good thing and why it is inherently inevitable. Whether she is killed by someone with genuine emotional grievance against her destructive power, or whether she ends in self-destruction because of the delusional obsession with fire and superiority... it has to match what makes Dany specifically and the Targaryens generally bad news.

Unlike in the show, book!Varys is a scheming villain, full stop. He cuts out the tongues of children and manipulates people into their own destruction based on his own personal political vision of what's best for Westeros as a whole. A "well-intentioned extremist" at the most generous interpretation. He is essentially little different from Dany, and only vaguely so from Littlefinger. There is nothing inherently special about him that would qualify him to end Dany, on a thematic level. He will likely try. But he will fail. He's not getting a win like that to send him off before his villain death.

If someone (other than herself) ends Dany, it has to be a figure that represents what truly opposes her. And that's not Varys.

[inessencedevided]

Oh yeah, titles are totes valid. I like yiling patriarch cos when you think about it it doesn't make sense. He didn't create the town of yiling, and he technically doesn't even live there. He sould be called burial mounds patriarch or smth.

Anyway, enough about titles (also if I have made a mistake due to translation error or misunderstanding, whoops). Which OG sect leader do you think was the worst, and which one was the best? And which next gen sect leader is best and worst?

I dislike jgs most, cos yikes. Wrh might have been a tirant and war criminal, but at least he wasn't as big of a dick as jgs. Can't really decide who the best is, cos they all had issues, you know?

Worst next gen would have to be jgy, not cos I dislike him as a person but because he definitely commited war crime and genocide. Idk best here either cos once again, *slaps top of cgl* these cultivators can fit so much trauma and issues. I do like imagining how the now sect is run. One twink mastermind and his hunk retinue? Love that for them

-the axe cultivator

Argh, 🪓-cultivator (there's an emoji! :D). I'm so sorry! I'm terribly behind again in answering you. I promise, I like your asks but I want to give them proper attention and the holidays were surprisingly busy this year.

That question is very creative! And hard ^^ I had to think about all my answers, even the seemingly easy "worst sect leader of the OG". Because while jin Guangshan is definitely a pompous ass and overall shitty person who is more concerned with sleeping with every woman in Lanling than his duties and who didn't step up during the sunshot campaign and then decided to use the power vacuum afterwards to his advantage, he at least, you know, did some sect leading. Which is not something that can be said about one Qingheng-Jun. That guy just left his brother and eventually and increasingly his teenage son in charge. Now what is worse? Bad sect leading or no sect leading at all? I don't know if I can decide ^^

Ah yeah and Wen Ruohan ... 🤷‍♀️ obviously he wasn't great, but he's also the least three-dimensional "villain" so I never really bother with him ^^

The best og sect leader? Does lan qiren as an acting sect leader count? ^^ obviously he too has issues, as you said. I believe lan qiren, as a leader, as an uncle and as an educator was deeply influenced by the things that happened with his brother. I can only imagine how deeply it must have hurt him to see his brother abandon both his people, him, his brother and his own children for the sake of one woman. Whatever your opinion on qingheng-jun, I believe we can all agree that his actions must have deeply hurt and disappointed lan qiren. We don't know what he was like before those events, so we don't know just how mich of his extreme rigidity is due to those events, but I do believe that they hardened him and made him more inflexible. Maybe he was much more of a free spirit before. Maybe he was a lot like Lan Wangji, but instead of loosening and expanding his understanding of the relationship between morality and rules, the events that shaped him let him to harden them. We don't know. But we do know that he picked up the pieces his brother left him. My point is, you can think about his style of leadership and teaching what you want but you cannot deny that he is devoted to the people in his care and that's not something you can say about a lot of the leaders of his generation.

Now, to the next gen leaders:

This is, in a way, even harder to decide ...

I wouldn't call jiggy the worst sect leader so easily. His record, imo, is very much mixed. The watchtowers, if I recall the novel correctly (it's been 6 months since I last read it ^^), were a pretty good way to get help to people who usually fall under the radar of the cultivation sects. So while he definitely sacrificed a lot in his rise to the top, he seems to have tried to help the common people (something that cannot be said about his two predecessors).

But ... who then? I thought a lot about it and I think I'm inclined to say Nie Huaisang. Don't get me wrong, I love him as much as anyone, but I also remember the part in the novel where, when wangxian investigate the "man eating bunker" (i wonder how accurate that translation is) a town's person sais that they don't expect help from the nie sect because ever since Nie Huaisang took over nothing gets done and they neglect to help the people within their territory. Now, we know that Nie huaisang cultivated a reputation of general incompetence so people wouldn't suspect him to scheme against jin guangyao, but in doing so, he obviously neglected his duty to the people under his care. Which is, imo, pretty consistent with his character. Nie Huaisang us ruthless when sufficiently angered and has no qualms to cause casual damage to achieve his goal (see Mo Xuanyu's suicide to bring wei wuxian back). His revenge was his first priority and so he placed being a good brother over being a good sect leader.

Best? Is also dificult. I honestly can't decide between Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng? There are so many factors to consider here! (There were already woth the ones above, really): what actions count towards the assessment of their leadership? What makes good leadership at all? (Which is funny because I'm doing my masters in political science rn and that's one of the biggest questions in political theory. But I only really know "Western" political theory. Chinese philosophy i have only ever graced the surface of) which is to say ... I can't really decide.

Jiang cheng put his sect above all else. While there's a lot of debate about whether that was morally right, it's certainly what helped him rebuild his sect as quickly as he did. He is brash and sometimes cruel, but his deciples clearly trust him and admire him.

Lan Xichen is an incredible diplomat. He is calm, fair (i.e. when he decides to listen to wangxians accusations against the sworn brother he loved and investigated them himself) and proactive when he needs to be. (I know, he is often accused of being too passive within the fandom, but I don't think that is necessarily the case. In a world where most leaders seem to base their judgement on rumor and hearsay more often than not, he withholds judgement until he listened to all sides. That is not a flaw in leadership) Now, in the end, he seemingly follows his father's footsteps by going into seclusion. I would argue, that still doesn't place them on the same step leadership wise. A. The situation with Jin Guangyao and madam lan, imo, aren't equivalent. It's hard to judge madam lan because we don't know what let her to kill the lan teacher, but I think it's unlikely she deceived qingheng-jun in the process. Jin Guangyao actively deceived kan xichen for years. When lan xichen learned this, he decided to investigate and was badly hurt in the process. The outcome, seclusion, may be the same, but the reasons are different. Also, the novel heavily implies that lan xichen will eventually emerge and take up his duties again.

All of this is to say... I can't decide ^^

I'll answer the other putstabding ask tomorrow. It's past midnight now and I should really sleep. Thank you for being so patient 💙

Btw, happy holidays, if you celebrate 🥰