Saera & Viserra Doodles

Saera & Viserra doodles

Marked with numbers so I can go point by point. Sorry this is my sideblog so I can’t answer in the replies lol. @lives4lovesworld Content warning for discussion of rape and the sexualization of minors

1. Gross.

2. Also gross. I’d like to think maybe that’s because he wanted more subtlety to make viewers think for themselves, but given everything else…………… that seems generous.

3. I fully believe that Dany is unable to cope with the trauma of having been raped and abused so she rewrites her memories and romanticizes the past. There’s some language that alludes to this, like when she’s yearning for a lover she has to “remind” herself that it’s Drogo she wants. Additionally, I believe that if she were to accept the reality of who Drogo was and what he did, she’d realize that her choice to execute Mirri was wrong and unjust, given her stance that slaves should not be punished for rising up against their masters. While her grief over losing her baby in that moment was understandable and I don’t believe this action makes her evil by any stretch, I do believe it was wrong morally both in general and to Dany’s own morals. It is curious that she is sickened and horrified by the memory of other acts of violence, like the crucified masters and her brother’s death, but she does not reflect on Mirri. If she stops romanticizing Drogo she must confront not only her own abuse but also her own act of injustice. I think that realizing her dragons, the things that have brought her power, were born of an unjust killing, is something Dany cannot face. But I cannot speak to whether or not this was George’s intent or if it is just how I have interpreted Dany.

4. Tbh I find Lysa and Cersei to be extremely sympathetic. I think Cersei especially is an incredible character because she manages to be sympathetic and relatable to all sorts of women based on the injustices she has faced despite also being despicable. Lysa’s character is so sad too. Again, unsure of author intent, but I don’t personally find these portrayals offensive as a survivor of abuse and sexual violence. Abuse doesn’t produce nice people when they don’t have therapy and/or good coping skills and/or a solid support network.

5. Does he really sexualize Myrcella even?? 😭 I don’t remember anything like that.

6. Point taken. Even Brienne is much younger than Jaime but I think we tend to forget this because of the show. Ned and Davos are good counterexamples. Sam, Jon, and Quentyn too. But they’re all young themselves. Can’t recall if Theon ever desired teenage girls either. He dreamed of marrying Sansa but I’d attribute that more to his desire to be accepted as a Stark and the fact that Sansa is the older of the two girls rather than any actual interest in her. If I remember correctly, Aeron, Barristan, and Areo are all in the clear too. But Tyrion and Victarion… woof. Not to mention non-POV characters. If I were to play devil’s advocate a bit, I’d say it’s less related to physical attraction to teenage girls and more a matter of these girls being the easiest to exploit. They are more naive and have even less power than grown women. There’s the idea that they can be shaped into what the men desire. This is obvious still very sexist, but it’s more understandable to put into a story and makes more sense in a super patriarchal pseudo-medieval society than the notion that most men are just pedophiles.

7. Also can’t recall any underage characters being described as having ripe breasts. Just to check I searched the phrase on search of ice and fire and found that Tyrion uses it to describe Catelyn, Theon describes Asha’s breasts growing ripe before he knows it’s Asha, and Arys uses this phrase to describe Arianne. I also searched “breasts” and scrolled through until I ran out of steam. Roslin (16) is noted by Catelyn to have “shapely” breasts. Dany’s breasts are described……. Often. As either small or, when she was pregnant, swollen. It is weird the number of times they are noted even if the language is not strictly pornographic or voyeuristic. Shae’s breasts are also frequently described by Tyrion as small and firm, although Shae is 20-21. So it is weird how often underage girls’ breasts are commented on, especially Daenerys. I don’t think it pinged my consciousness because one may not notice how often it is until you’re presented with every instance of breasts being described since the language doesn’t read as pornographic.

8. This is a very good point. Nothing to add; it stands perfectly on its own.

9. I discuss this in 6. It is alarming how often it occurs but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s every major male character aside from Jon.

10. I think it’s a bit of a weak argument for justifying the amount of rape. It’s fantasy. It’s only pseudo-medieval. Not everything has to be historically accurate.

11. George denies that Danny was raped by Drogo?! Does anyone have a direct quote on this? I’m trying to find one but cannot. It seems so shocking given the way he wrote her chapters that makes it obvious. I know that he called the wedding night a seduction but I don’t know the exact quote and I always thought he meant that she was coerced and groomed then vs raped by force.

12. This one is a bit touchy. I can look at this from two angles: whether or not it’s weird that he wrote this vs whether or not it’s realistic for a victim of sexual trauma. Because I’d like to gently push back on the claim that it’s unrealistic. This type of thing is not at all an uncommon trauma response. Becoming sex repulsed or even fully touched repulsed is just one way someone might respond to sexual trauma. I have complex PTSD as a result of abusive relationships as a teenage that did include sexual abuse. I can be paranoid and sex repulsed at times but more often I experience a lot of self-objectification and have trouble shaking the mindset that it is my duty to be sexually available and attractive in order to have any worth, and that’s WITH years and years of therapy. This kind of trauma response would especially make sense for someone who is barely willing to acknowledge that she abused at all, who romanticizes her abusers. It’s common for victims to, in a sense, re-enact trauma to try to get a different outcome. Re-roll the dice for a better ending. Daenerys has a lot more power than she did when she was married to Drogo, so the idea that she would try to recreate their sexual experience with Daario is perfectly in line with her internal narrative of events and totally makes sense for a victim of sexual violence who romanticizes her abuser. Engaging with Daario like this, someone she can project Drogo onto, also helps maintain the romanticized delusion I mentioned in point 3. If she recognizes that Daario is a creep then she must recognize that Drogo was too and from there it all comes crashing down.

Now, did George consider this when writing Dany’s story? Or is he just a creep who wanted to write more sex scenes for her? I can’t say. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Which is probably my general takeaway on the topic as a whole. I don’t think he’d thoroughly a creep who just wrote all this to sexualize underage girls nor do I think he’s not at all a creep. I think we can and should be critical of these tendencies he has but also give credit where it’s due and acknowledge that on some level he wanted to criticize these things

George did NAWT write “it was her 14th name day” for y’all to say he sees Drogo and Dany as romantic while defending the age gap between Rhaegar and Lyanna. It is so so obvious that Dany was deeply traumatized by her marriage to Drogo and reacted to the trauma by romanticizing and reframing it both during and after the experience. Like I don’t think Rhaegar kidnapped an unwilling Lyanna but I also don’t think George intended for us to look at their situation uncritically he didn’t write about a ton of teenage girls dying in childbirth, with husbands much older than they are, for the sake of historical accuracy alone. I think George intentionally gives us two contradictory images of Rhaegar: the evil kidnapper who locked Lyanna away and the tortured-soul hero who truly loved Lyanna and did everything he could for her and I came to the understanding that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Ooh thanks for the reply! I’ve been thinking about this because my relationship to this is curious. Style has zero impact for male characters I connect with but it definitely is a factor with female characters. A small one. Removing all other factors, I will connect more with (aesthetically) gender nonconforming female characters than with (aesthetically) traditionally feminine female characters. I’d be most drawn to a character with style like mine (alternative/egirl/goth-lite) but that’s not common in a lot of stories.

This is interesting to me because I am not aesthetically gender nonconforming. I do not conform to mainstream trends. I have long hair and wear eyeliner and mascara most days. I wear skirts and dresses far more often than not (excluding days I have to do bench work in the lab in which case my outfits are determined by lab safety and not style). Some of my outfits even verge on preppy-feminine (for example, a black sweater, a red pleated mini skirt, black knee high boots, and my hair pulled back with a red bow).

So why, if the only options are classically girly feminine (like frilly white lace, soft pastels, a polished classy look) or gender nonconforming, why do I feel more kinship with the latter when my own style is closer to the former and I’d feel even more kinship with a character sharing my actual style? If I had to pick one of the two ways to dress, I’d also probably pick the former, if I was leaving the house. I’d prefer a fancy gown to a nice suit.

Perhaps it’s related to growing up with media where the mean girls always dressed like this, although in real life, girls were never mean to me—my bullies were only ever boys.

I’m just rambling really but I’ve been mulling this over and I can’t find an answer that feels right, so I’m curious if anyone else has similar feelings

Might submit this to the anonymous polls blog but they’ve got a huge backlog so for now if you see this please reblog and tell me, as a comment or in the tags or even a reply, does a character’s sense of style impact how much you connect with them and if so how does it relate to your own sense of style?

Given the entire story of asoiaf this isn’t likely but I’m imagining like. No rebellion. Rhaegar and Cersei cancel each other out about. He tells her about the prophecy and she, in an act of denial of her own prophecy, is like, “haha, yeah that probably means nothing. And if it’s real it probably isn’t about you anyway. Can you imagine tho.” Jaime still kills Aerys. Cersei and Rhaegar know and they don’t care and they’re able to conceal his death for quite some time by saying that he’s become extremely reclusive and shuts himself in his chambers and is only willing to speak to Rhaegar who goes and has fake conversations with him while Cersei frantically conspires with disgraced maesters to preserve his body and disguise the fact that he was murdered so they can have him “die of natural causes” when it’s convenient for them

What do you think might have happened if Cersei and Rhaegar wed? Asking because I’m looking for inspiration in making a Cergar child OC

valid lol. okay so off the top of my head here-

cersei is only fifteen when this happens. old enough to consummate without anyone thinking rhaegar is a creep BUT young enough that her body is NAWT grown yet. i think she'll have a hard time with pregnancy and child birth - maybe not enough to like, ruin her fertility the way elia's is, but she's definitely going to struggle being sixteen and pregnant.

rhaegar trusted elia enough to talk about the prophecy to her (or so we assume from dany's quick vision) so it's not unlikely he would tell cersei something about it. i'm not sure if she would tell him about her own prophecy - she hasn't even told jaime in canon - but it is likely to make her a little crazy if she knows there's a prophecy about how rhaegar will cheat on her, their kids will die, but also their kids are supposedly destined to be great leaders of some sort.

the marriage doesn't go through in canon because aerys feels tywin is getting a little too big for his breeches. if the marriage has gone through, this either means tywin is less popular for some reason or aerys starts going cuckoo just a smidge later. how aerys feels about this marriage is going to affect how it happens - for example, if he does it to spite dorne, well while arthur dayne may still be in the kingsguard, but you can bet neither loreza nor ashara nor lewyn are anywhere near that capital.

if aerys agrees to it while also tricking jaime into the kingsguard (maybe during the actual wedding feast?), that means that tywin may have been pushed out as hand while both the twins are in the capital still. if cersei feels some type of way about rhaegar, we know her go to coping mechanism is fucking jaime...

once the rebellion starts kicking off is where you're going to run into some insane shenanigans. cersei is not going to sit there straight backed while rhaegar is openly courting someone else. robert is quiet with his affairs - or has them far away from cersei - specifically because We All Know she's capable of murdering his bastards or his mistresses. similarly, tywin is going to react differently than doran to aerys using cersei and her kids as hostages - i mean we quite literally see him being Not About That Shit with just jaime as a hostage, let alone cersei and any royal babies she has.

either dorne is conveniently whistling and looking the other way or someone in robert's camp is smart enough to reach out to them. especially if rhaegar is disrespectful enough to still use the tower of joy to trap lyanna - there's just no way doran is looking at rhaegar bringing the rebellion into his land and not getting peeved off about it after being publicly humiliated by aerys refusing loreza's suit.

@lives4lovesworld what comments has he made about Dany and Drogo? I know he said something about their wedding night scene being “a seduction” but I don’t think that strictly means he saw it as romantic or consensual. Because based on the text alone, I wouldn’t think for a second that GRRM wants us to see their relationship that way.

The other relationship you mentioned is definitely unusual because he did say he played with the idea and there’s something there (even if he has since abandoned the idea). Because again, based on the text alone he seems to be inviting the reader to be critical of relationships between adult men and teenage girls. It wouldn’t be the only example of him muddying his own messages a bit.

I’d also be curious about times he’s sexualized his underage characters. I know he said once in an interview that Dany is very attractive, but that’s all I know of. Because tbh I don’t feel like they’re sexualized in the text. Like he did write sex scenes, and he wrote comments about the size of their breasts or about their pubic hair, but I’d be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because these descriptions really didn’t feel erotic or voyeuristic to me. Other characters certain sexualize the underage characters, but I always thought it was meant to be viewed through a critical lens, like with Tyrion and Littlefinger towards Sansa and Jorah and Drogo towards Dany.

Him toying with the idea of Sandor and Sansa is eyebrow raising but I don’t think it’s enough to discard the many times in-universe teenagers with adult husbands died in childbirth. Like based exclusively on the text I’d say that the reader is supposed to find the actions of the aforementioned four men to be creepy and predatory and unacceptable.

I’m definitely critical of the man but I can’t say in good faith that he’s uncritical of the objectification of underage girls

George did NAWT write “it was her 14th name day” for y’all to say he sees Drogo and Dany as romantic while defending the age gap between Rhaegar and Lyanna. It is so so obvious that Dany was deeply traumatized by her marriage to Drogo and reacted to the trauma by romanticizing and reframing it both during and after the experience. Like I don’t think Rhaegar kidnapped an unwilling Lyanna but I also don’t think George intended for us to look at their situation uncritically he didn’t write about a ton of teenage girls dying in childbirth, with husbands much older than they are, for the sake of historical accuracy alone. I think George intentionally gives us two contradictory images of Rhaegar: the evil kidnapper who locked Lyanna away and the tortured-soul hero who truly loved Lyanna and did everything he could for her and I came to the understanding that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

This is my prediction for how the dance of dragons is going to go